Folklore (Worm/Celestial Grimoire SI)
By: Turncoat
[NSFW] - Folklore (Worm/Celestial Grimoire SI) by Turncoat
Status: ongoing
Published: 2024-01-12
Updated: 2024-03-05
Words: 76979
Chapters: 11
Original source: https/forum./threads/25466
Exported with the assistance of
Folklore (Worm/Celestial Grimoire SI)
Introduction
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 1
I've posted this elsewhere, but this is just me catching up with posting it here. There's… a large backlog, so I'll get through it eventually.
Enjoy.
Winslow was a shithole.
It felt weird to say that as an outside observer, someone who'd only ever vicariously experienced the place through the pages of stories, but it was true. There were all the hallmarks of overstressed staff, underfunded infrastructure, and the casual sort of urban negligence that you could find in any inner-city high school across America. In that, it wasn't special, because the wild bits could be blamed on the parahuman presence in the city.
Brockton Bay was a special kind of dumpster fire, the sort that had a pretty monstrous lineup of effective parahumans on the Protectorate ENE on staff, that still hadn't made a dent out of the atrocious crime rate. The Empire 88 and ABB colored so much of the social fabric of the school just by existing in the city, that it was impossible to ignore them. With the latter, at the very least there was some sort of Asian solidarity there, rather than objective outward viciousness towards other ethnic groups. For the most part, anyway.
For the former, though?
I'm not sure if I've ever felt more conscious of being black in my entire life. Back in my world, there were certainly moments when I had a bit of discomfort because of my ethnicity, but by and large, it was a non-issue. Now? Walking down the halls on my given first day of school as a new 'transfer', I felt decidedly vulnerable in a way I'd never felt before. Some of the Empire wannabes looked at me with actual disgust and thinly veiled disdain, and it took actual effort not to shirk away from those glances.
From everything I've read in Canon and Fanon, this place was the worst kind of environment to be showing even a smidgeon of weakness. It was the kind of environment that actively created the Sophia Hess's of the world, and would eat you alive if you let it. Walking through the halls, I felt that notion more than ever.
Whatever Entity or R.O.B. dumped me here had a bit of a sense of humor, I think, where it stuck me in the body of someone who was roughly analogous to me in high school. IE, a bit chubby, with glasses, and the sort of fashion sense of a goddamn dork. I had short, tightly curly black hair, a tendency towards hoodies and jeans regardless of the weather, and the sort of forgettable features most people would just slide over. Things weren't helped by me being a group home kid, which severely curtailed my fashion options there, ever since I'd slotted into Odell Mason something like a week before.
Brocktonite was born and raised, with a strung-out set of parents and bouncing around from group home to group home. I didn't know how much of my origin was real, and how much of it was a fabrication by the Entity that dumped me here. Did I slot into the original Odell? Was his existence just a polite fiction, a nebulous enough smokescreen to allow for the least amount of parental supervision while I fucked around here?
That way lies madness. For right now, I'd keep my biggest concern being finding Knott's classroom.
There was a part of me that genuinely, wholeheartedly considered whether or not I should run for the hills and dodge canon events entirely. Not get involved, stay away, use the bullshit abilities that the Entity had given me in relative peace. I'm not sure if I even had a shard in my head, pushing me toward conflict. I had a lot of really good, salient points for not being the hero, for not giving a fuck about whatever butterflies I sent into motion, and letting things more or less play out. Especially if I dipped out and just left the city in its entirety.
It would have been easy.
Unfortunately, I was a sucker for lost causes.
Entering the classroom, I took a look around and felt a peculiar kind of disassociation from my brain connecting a disgusting amount of character descriptions from the story and Wildbow's WoG posts on Reddit and beyond.
Greg Veder, eternally vibrating blonde who couldn't hold his shit together to save his life? Check.
Sparky? Constantly sleeping his way through the day? Right there.
Taylor Hebert?
I looked around a little bit more and saw her towards the back alone, and she looked… average. Maybe that's on me, on my presumptions that the so-called queen of escalation was going to walk around looking like hot shit. That there'd be this wow factor that stood out to you immediately. If anything, she just looked a lot like her peers, but more studiously neutral.
That must have come with the territory of being horrendously bullied at school. She's stronger than me when it comes to reserves of willpower, but to be fair, in my old life circumstances were different. Sure, I had a bully or two, and I wasn't the most confrontational just by my nature. However, that changed when my parents gave me an ultimatum in middle school.
Either fight my bullies at school or fight my parents when I get home. I picked my poison, and it helped that my parents genuinely did not give a shit if I got in a fight at school. Provided I didn't lay my hands on anyone first, they were alright with me doing anything that didn't cause lasting damage.
They had their ups and downs, like any parents. Compared to my state now, I'll admit that I missed their absence more than I would have thought possible.
I'm also getting off track.
Ambling over to the teacher at the head of the classroom, she was old enough that I thought I had a pretty solid idea of who I was looking at. "Ah, Mrs. Knott? I'm Odell, I was told this was my class?"
She wasn't a woman I'd have called anything but homely, but then again, I'd always had something of an instinctive aversion to even thinking about my teacher's appearance. It fundamentally othered them to me, in a way nothing could undo. "You're the new transfer?"
"Guilty as charged," I dryly replied. "Can I just sit wherever, or do you have, like, assigned seating…?"
She gestured to the multitudinous amount of empty chairs, given I'd beelined it straight for the classroom rather than loitering in the halls. "Take your pick. First come, first served."
At the very least, I took a bit of time to look over my options, before choosing to sit in the back, but not anywhere near Taylor. Frankly, I didn't have the time, energy, or ability to wholeheartedly engage in a campaign to win her over in our civilian identities. Besides, by this point she was already planning on being a hero, so just establishing myself as a hero and making a new independent team in the Bay would make this fundamentally, an easier proposition.
Settling in, I cracked open my textbooks to while away the time, but out of everything I was concerned about, academic performance was not one of them, if only because of the magic circuits that were settling inside of me.
It was March of 2011, and there were several more years at least until the end of the world. And if I was just a normal guy in the middle of this clusterfuck, I'd be freaking out. However, I had the Celestial Grimoire on my side. That wasn't something that you could discount easily. Even if stories with the Celestial Forge and the Celestial Menagerie usually could get out of control pretty quickly, the Grimoire was different.
At the most barebones description of it, the Grimoire slowly built up a 'charge' as time passed. At specific intervals of power, it would explode forth and try to latch onto one of the many entries inside of it. If I had enough charge I could choose to either reject or accept it, which was good for me. There were plenty of abilities inside of the Grimoire that I'd take, but plenty that were beyond useless or actively malicious to me. When I didn't have enough charge, the Grimoire merely automatically rejected it and continued the process anew.
There might be some busted abilities in my future, but chances are they weren't going to just drop into my lap right away. I had to build up to them from smaller abilities, piece by piece- And one of those initial abilities I'd already gotten was Magic Circuits.
Magic circuits hailed from nasuverse magecraft, and functioned as a sort of unnatural additional nervous system grafted into a magus. On the surface, it didn't precisely give you a lot of immediate benefits, like some abilities from the Grimoire did. However, that was the most basic, superficial look that someone could take from it.
I'm not the biggest nasuverse simp, but I've incorporated quite a bit of lore from the setting in the periphery of the average amount of Saber-lust I have, like any anime fan. Magical circuits could be used for committing calculations internally and replaying memories, closer to internal processing power than anything else for me. It was very much a conscious action for me to use it, the same with the function of being exceptionally aware of how much time had passed. But as a Thinker ability, it was pretty good.
That's before you get into the four given basic forms of magecraft that I could theoretically learn.
Formalcraft and Hypnosis were right out, for all sorts of reasons. The first was because it required a more grounded education in the arts, something that I was quite literally not in a position to learn- Seeing as all the courses on it were in another universe. Then the second, which was because being a Human Master on Earth-Bet was a pretty good way to get brutally murdered the moment anyone found out and took umbrage, or railroaded to the Birdcage. And then brutally murdered there. That left the other two forms of magecraft, and thankfully, they were fundamentally more valuable to me at that moment.
Reinforcement was supposedly difficult, but was also just a boost to your physical capabilities when used. Granting myself a Brute rating on a moment's notice was something that felt like it could be valuable for not getting hurt whenever I picked up and started my Cape career. I'm a practical sort of guy, and having the option to whammy someone, or run away, appealed to me. There were probably more ways to use it, but again, I didn't have the education to say.
Annoyingly, I felt the Grimoire grope and miss for an ability, as I continued down the street to my group home. Mostly lost in thought, though keeping my head on a swivel as I headed through the old industrial district.
Beyond Reinforcement, the easiest would be Projection. No, I wouldn't be Shirou Emiya, but there was a special sort of enjoyment in the ability to conjure weapons out of thin air. It was dependent on me studying them, understanding their composition and how they were made, and preferably having examples to work off. Tinkertech was another big question mark for me since nobody seemed to know exactly how it worked- Even the tinkers struggled to explain it to anyone but themselves- But I was going to try it the first chance I got, just in case I got lucky and could replicate it. For now, I satisfied myself with iron rings in my pocket, mostly to get used to the hot feeling of magic circuits in my body heating up.
Already, they were beginning to fade as I jogged up the steps and entered the group home. It was… not great if I'm being honest, but not as bad as it could have been. Eight boys lived there full-time, including me, and all of us were either teenagers or tweenagers. All of them came from situations like mine, that could be called complicated at the best of times, and some of them had real issues.
Except Rio. Rio was the man.
"Yo, Odell!" Rio called from the couch as I entered, grinning wide. "What up?"
"Sup, Rio," I greeted back, though perhaps not with the same energy.
"What's shakin'? What's goin' on? What you doin'?"
"Bro, I just got out of school, lemme cool down before you give me the third fuckin' degree."
That got a snort out of the boy, and let me scrutinize him a little closer. Rio Lopez was fourteen, two years younger than this body, but undeniably in better shape. He was lean and slender, all whipcord muscle on his tanned complexion, with tight, curly hair and big, brown eyes. If there wasn't a big grin on his lips, he was probably either eating or dying. There wasn't any a between the two, with this kid.
Maybe I should stop thinking of him as a kid. I wasn't much better as a chubby sixteen-year-old.
"Aight, aight. We still hoggin' the computer tonight to shitpost on PHO?" The boy asked, and frankly, I'm not even sure why he did.
If there was anything I loved more in this life or the last, it was fucking with people online. "… Bro, what else would we even do? Homework?"
If we were more reliable, upstanding kids, maybe.
But I planned on just using my magic circuits to blow through whatever classes I had. When you had access to on-demand memory storage and calculation abilities, why would you not use your pseudo-Thinker abilities? Ideally, I'd get something soon that helped me either lose some weight, increase my physical capabilities, or give me a means of fighting back. For obvious reasons, I'd rather not be a Thinker-shaped package for someone to 'recruit' with no means of self-defense.
After stowing away my stuff, I went and kicked it with Rio for a while, working away at whatever homework I'd gotten on that day, and doing what I needed to to make up for my transfer. Thankfully, Winslow wasn't exactly the kind of place that raised academic athletes, so I was fairly sure that I could keep well ahead of anything they issued in terms of assignments.
When it came down to it, I finished what I needed to quickly enough to begin sketching out a sort of plan in the back of my notebook, for the future at large. It was a bit tense when I realized that the charge of magic inside of me that the Grimoire used could be spent on cheaper, but less powerful abilities, or saved up even when I had the option to claim a new ability. Balancing utility versus defense, offense versus the capability to get the hell out of dodge at a moment's notice, the truly random expressions that could throw any finely laid into ruin at any time…
… I decided it was for the best that I didn't focus too much on it, while Rio flipped through the free channels available via the television antenna.
In the end, I settled for going down the list of things I knew for a fact I had to do, in no real particular order.
Keeping Taylor alive. For as bad as the original ending of Worm was, it was better than Human extinction. Khepri was a hail mary, a goddamn option of final resort. Besides, keeping hero hopefuls alive was just common sense, given how many villains there were in the world. Not just dealing with the incredible amounts of crime, but also the root cause of it: The fact that all the legitimate kinds of work had dried up when the port city lost its port. Because nobody who could afford to save the dock worker's jobs was interested in doing so, a lot of people had turned to gang work just to keep dinner on the table. If I could clear the way for ships to come back in, those jobs to return- Well, it wasn't going to be easy. The gangs probably weren't going to let their members just *leave* in droves because they had another option, and the companies that shipped goods here to begin with might be reluctant to start again, because of all the incredible amounts of crime- But it'd be a start. It'd be a hope for a lot of people, and it was worth doing it for that alone. Don't die. This felt pretty self-explanatory, but honestly, sometimes a guy felt the need to reaffirm this for himself.
In the short term, the acquisition of power was paramount. Becoming friends with Taylor was… honestly, a side benefit. Throughout all of her interpretations, very rarely was Taylor ever someone actively malicious, or not worth being a friend for. By all accounts, just being passingly friendly with her at school and not in a creepy way, should be enough to let things sort of slide into place later on. Offering help if and when she needed it, but not being overbearing like Greg took a minimal amount of effort from me.
Besides, I'd had plenty of experience being an awkward wreck around enough girls in high school the first time around. Never again.
I'd also be lying if I said I wasn't somewhat interested in seeing how things shook out in terms of how close the story was to her characterization. I didn't want to rely on what I thought I knew about characters, to act close with them because I'd formed a parasocial relationship via reading about them. Besides being a good way to get me killed from assumptions, it was again, sort of creepy. Beyond being passingly friendly with Taylor, I'd let things naturally develop as they would.
Inside, I could feel the Grimoire groping for something once again, but it was very much to my surprise when I found it connecting with something. Lazily staring at my notebook, it took everything I had not to immediately get up and begin cackling like a complete and utter madman. Sometimes the Grimoire could give you something that wasn't immediately useful.
Clever Craft(100CP) - Having been trained as a mage, you know basic spells from each of the schools of magic, and can easily learn new spells.
Clever Craft did not qualify as anything but objectively useful.
Knowledge of Elder Scrolls magic flooded into my mind, and if it was for only one school? I would have been completely satisfied with the bargain. Getting basic knowledge of Alteration, Conjuration, Destruction, Illusion, and Restoration, with their novice-level spells and the ability to learn more?
Yes, I was very pleased.
Elder Scrolls lore was something I was a touch more familiar with, because it was esoteric and weird, and I'm just the type of guy that likes stuff like that. Magic on Mundus came from Aetherius, passing through the sun and stars to reach the planet and then be used by mortal mages. That was the basic, barebones explanation.
How that worked or why that even worked on Earth-Bet, I didn't know. Why look a gift horse in the mouth? My magicka pool was a shallow thing, a new feeling in the back of my mind when I reached out to manipulate it, but I also had a new and delightful realization at that moment.
Prana is the magical power created by magical circuits, by taking in Mana from the environment and mixing it with the Od of the human body. That was what powered magecraft, and I'm not sure if it was just a pleasant surprise or a functional byproduct of how the Grimoire worked… but apparently, Prana could also be used for Mundus magecraft.
Why no one ever found out about this was, well, rather self-evident. That didn't make it any less of a delight to me, as I let sparks flicker through my fingers, a small manifestation of the Destruction spell named the same.
This week would mostly be spent on getting everything I needed together but after that? Well, then my plans could begin in earnest.
Canon as it stood was already a trainwreck, and this city was going to hell no matter what. I was probably going to disrupt things even more than what was already going to happen if I didn't change anything- But since I was going to change things for the better, it was probably worth the added chaos, in the short term.
Y'know, if I didn't get brutally murdered first.
Spoiler: Author's Notes
Hello, and thank you for reading! It's been upwards of a decade since I wrote fanfiction last, but through the inspiring example of so many different people on this site and beyond, I got back into the game. I'm rusty, but I'd like to think that I can improve with every chapter. I'm very eager and hopeful for feedback, for people to tell me things they'd like to improve in the story, and generally? To tell me how much they do or don't enjoy what I'm writing.
With all of that being said, let's kick back and enjoy the ride. This story will be crossposted to SV. Till next time.
Spoiler: Rolled Perks This Chapter
Magic Circuits(Tsukihime - 100CP) - Magic Circuits are the part of one's soul, a sort of nervous system, that enables them to use Magecraft and similar mysteries by combining Od(one's internal life energy) with Mana (the ambient energy in the environment) to create prana, and Magecraft is the result of these employed together. More circuits means more input and output of magical energies, though excessive use heats up and tires a human body due to the foreign nature of the powers involved. You start with 20 high-quality Magic Circuits for free, and may receive 30 more with each additional purchase of this perk.
Clever Craft(The Elder Scrolls - 100CP) - Having been trained as a mage, you know basic spells from each of the schools of magic, and can easily learn new spells.
Chapter 2
I've had something of a revelation when it came to Thinker powers. Back in my old life, I don't think they were even remotely in the running for the top five classifications I'd pick to have if given half a choice. Like so many other people, I was convinced that Tinkers were the true winners of the trauma lottery.
After a few weeks of living as a Thinker, I can say with some surety that I was a fool.
Magic circuits did not provide an automatic recall of my stored memories, but the effort of accessing them for the knowledge inside was very straightforward. Having that sort of recollection on demand, whenever I wanted it when doing homework, was criminally useful. And you know what?
I got it. I got why Thinkers were so goddamn smug now. I hadn't known what I was missing- But then, that was the point: The fact that they knew this stuff was why they were Thinkers.
That week at the start of the month with me getting started with school wasn't anything special. I saw Taylor get bullied a little, Greg was a spazz, and I did my best to stay away from the Nazis. Mostly because my bulky, nerdy appearance made me look like more of a target than ever. That was untenable in the long run, especially with the base athleticism a Cape needed. There were more than enough abilities in the Grimoire to change that state, but for now?
For now, I ran when I got home from school, took a shower, and got working on my costume.
Hiding the fact that you were a Cape when you were in a group home with a bunch of other boys was challenging. Add in the fact that personal space and property were a tenuous proposition at the best of times, and you have a recipe for disaster. If I was a Tinker it would have been a nightmare.
Ms. Flannerty was a polite enough woman if ever frazzled and distant, and keeping track of a bunch of boys our age was a tenuous proposition at best. Provided we weren't dying, killing anyone, or objectively wearing gang colors? We were mostly left to our own devices, a fringe benefit of an overstressed social worker managing other similarly spastic minders.
That wasn't to say we weren't fed, our basic needs weren't being met, and we didn't get anything to ourselves. Some allowance could be earned by doing chores around the house, and I'd long since pawned off anything that I didn't think I'd need for a few bucks or trades around local pawn shops over the expanse of that week. Mostly so I could get cracking on my makeshift costume.
In time, I was positive the Grimoire could give me something better than anything I could throw together on my own. For now, I was the picture of the Brockton Bay Vigilante starter pack. I'd reinvent myself and my style when I had enough gear from the Grimoire to throw together to capture the look I was going for.
Black hoodie? Check.
Non-descript blue jeans? Check.
Crappy black gloves and a red bandanna? Yep, they're there.
Brown leather boots? Yes.
Cap it all off with a backpack that had a spare change of clothes, and I was all set to go when the night rolled around. In a nicer city, the group home staff might have kept up to date on our goings and leavings from the house. As it was now, they didn't have the money or oversight needed to keep teenage boys with no parental supervision from coming and leaving as they pleased. That was difficult to do when you had a little more than the polite fiction of authority over them.
Given my congenial behavior towards old Ms. Flannerty up to this point, I felt a little bad about abusing that trust. On the other hand, I sort of needed to. Given how sluggish my Grimoire's growth had been, I could almost certainly suspect that the issue was that I was being too inactive. Or maybe that was just the nervous energy inside me since I so desperately wanted to practice my magic.
I wasn't exactly a parahuman, but I did have at least one thing in common with them: My magic wanted to be used, and the more active I was, the more I made the most of my potential, the better I would become. Unlike parahumans, my powers didn't necessarily need to be used in fights… But fights worked, and if I wanted to establish myself as a cape in Brockton Bay, that was kind of my only option toward that goal at the moment, anyway.
Skulking into the night, it was quiet and I was passively alert enough of my surroundings to at least give my goals for the night some thought. Looking over the given criminal targets in Brockton Bay, there were some pretty obvious realities that a guy had to come to. That was the fact that the ABB and Empire Eighty-Eight were off-limits to me at my current levels of strength.
The ABB was because I couldn't fight Lung or Oni Lee right now. Either of them would kill me, or leave me in a state I wished I was dead, which is the same difference. And well, the E88 was a bunch of actual nazis, and I was black. Very, very black. Losing against either of these groups was untenable, and too big of a risk. Add in the fact that I just flat-out didn't know how to fight, and my decisions felt a little more justified.
So I hopped onto the bus and took a ride into territory that I felt like I'd be remotely safe to do Heroic shenanigans in.
The Archer's Bridge Merchants were an interesting case of canon not exactly lining up with the reality of the world. From my body's faint recollections and memories, and stuff pulled from the P.H.O. thread when I was fooling around with Rio, they'd gone through several different incarnations and no small amount of members over the years. A lot of the reason why they were even remotely still able to maintain a presence in the city, with Skidmark and Mush's admittedly lackluster performances as Capes?
Squealer. Hear me out.
Her ability to create massive vehicles was presumed to be where a not inconsiderable amount of the gang's profits went towards because they magnified their power projection tenfold. That was what the chatter on PHO believed, and I was inclined to believe it given how expensive Tinkertech was famed to be. If there was any doubt as to why Tinkers were so highly coveted by organizations across the world, the fact that one Tinker could hold together an entire group for years with that kind of leadership said it all.
There was also the fact that by and large, the 'territory' they held was so scattered and incohesive, that most people weren't even remotely familiar with the knowledge that they were a thing. They handled a criminal niche in Brockton Bay, hard drugs, that the other two criminal syndicates didn't want to touch as well. If someone was selling meth, crack, or anything that could send someone's life totally over the edge with addiction, chances are it tracked back to them.
Hopping off the bus whenever we hit the trainyard adjacent part of town, I felt the Grimoire fumble the bag when it came to something I wanted. Honestly, anything from A Practical Guide to Evil would have been great… but I'd have to be satisfied with shooting lightning out of my hands for now. As if that wasn't a big deal in and of itself.
Then came the process of finding somewhere to change into my costume, but you know what the nice thing about an economic recession in a formerly prosperous city was? There were tons of abandoned buildings that weren't secured enough for a guy like me to slip into and get changed, as it began to grow darker in earnest. It was just a matter of finding an abandoned warehouse to begin practicing my magic in earnest away from prying eyes.
Destruction magic was pretty cool. How else do you describe shooting out a gout of flame from your hands, ice, or electricity? Out of the bunch Sparks was the go-to offensive option, and even that couldn't be kept up forever, but with some testing, I could tone down the power, so I wasn't electrocuting people to death. Well, that was the goal at least. Between Sparks, Flames, and Frostbite, each had approximately forty-eight feet in range, which made sense in a video game. In real life, it was a stupid amount of distance for what was functionally a Blaster power to cover.
Alteration was a bit of a tricky one. Oakflesh had its uses, and the duration was longer than advertised in the game. That made sense, given the time in the games was fundamentally sped up from real life, with a bit of dilation involved. In reality, Oakflesh lasted for like, twenty minutes. Candlelight was pretty much useless, when I could just bring a flashlight. The spells from this school didn't get cool until you hit somewhere around Adept in my opinion, but that was a distant prospect for me.
Conjuration? Useful, in specific ways. Conjure Familiar was almost certainly going to be how I started up any fight that night. Letting a projection take damage before me was always the smart move. Those Bound Weapon spells were a lot less useful to me at the moment, though. I didn't know how to use a sword or a knife in a fight, and carrying one like I did know how to use them would make me look like a much more violent sort of cape than I was. Keeping a magic backup knife as a last resort wouldn't be a bad idea, but it wasn't going to be my first option. Or my third. Raise Zombie was… perhaps a bit of a nuclear option compared to the other Conjuration spells.
Controlling projections was one thing, as far as Capes were concerned. If anything, it was the type of Master that people could relax around and not have to worry about having their brains tickled. Puppeting around dead bodies was how you got people to look at you like you ran in the same circles as Bonesaw.
Now Illusion had some legs, but it might be a bit too close to Human Master for some people. Clairvoyance was neat for finding things I wanted directions towards, and only improved my Thinker-rating. Courage and Fury were not going to get used unless I was forced to reveal them, and Vision of the Tenth Eye was extremely situational.
It might seem like I'm harping on a lot about Human Masters, and to that I'll say something in my defense.
Being Mastered was a terrifying fate, and a situation arguably worse than death for the more powerful Masters, like Heartbreaker. I was reluctant to show off anything even remotely in the same category as it, even if it was the ability to fortify or enrage people. Though for comparison, the Wards already had Gallant, who could blast people with any emotion for a distance far more freely than my magicka could support, and Glory Girl, who inspired an emotion that was useful to her in a passive radius around her- Awe in her fans, terror in her enemies.
There was certainly a precedent for young capes with emotion-forcing powers already in the bay, ones more powerful and flexible than what I could do, but it was still something I should consider carefully before joining in on their reindeer games.
Coming to Restoration… That shit was built different.
In a world where parahuman healing abilities were rare, and having one that allowed you to heal others for no downsides? That was such a massive deal, the weight of expectations would be on me the moment it became known. When it became known I could reliably and harmlessly heal people, there would be mayhem at Brockton Bay gaining its third healing Cape.
Lesser Ward was probably my go-to active defensive option, truthfully. Whereas Healing, once I figured out Healing Hands, was going to be beyond useful. Brute ratings were where the ability to survive was at, and I desperately desired anything that'd let me survive the bullshit that was coming to this city. Bakuda, Leviathan, the Slaughterhouse Nine, Zion.
And then there was Enchanting. Even if I had a supply of soul gems handy, which I did not, I don't think anyone would be impressed if I shut down Hookwolf's dog fighting pits to heroically sacrifice the dogs there, and consume their souls to make and feed cool swords. The less anyone knew about the fact that I could trap souls, the better.
Taking about an hour of testing and resting with all my new spells, I was pretty satisfied with what I had. Whenever I got the ability for some mobility magic, I'd be taking it with exceptional glee. Here came the hard part of actually being a vigilante, if you couldn't gain a high vantage point by hopping over rooftops or flying overhead:
Finding crime on patrol.
In my last life, I did a stint in the United States Air Force for the G.I. Bill. I wasn't in the security forces, but everyone in basic training learned a little bit about peacekeeping and crime. Those truths weren't entirely translatable to Earth-Bet, but enough of them were to allow me to make some pretty solid generalizations about crime as a whole.
Heroes and police were, on average, deterring forces than those that stopped crime with any regularity. Sure, the Protectorate would roll up on Capes fights, and the police responded to calls, but those were inherently reactive actions. When they patrolled, they were doing their best to keep those incidents from popping off entirely. This is where we come to the part of the conversation that mattered, however.
They flat out couldn't patrol in certain parts of the city, which meant that public safety was at an all-time low in some districts. Gangs, Villains, and eroded community trust made that a hard sell. Wards technically weren't supposed to be patrolling at all, but this was Brockton Bay. They needed every hand on deck.
In vast swathes of Brockton Bay, Protectorate patrols were light or nonexistent, and in what the Merchants tended to roam as their turf? Well, it was on the lighter side, even if I'm pretty sure Protectorate Capes were willing to patrol here more given the dearth of truly dangerous parahumans. Which meant their drug-dealing underlings were relatively easy to find on street corners and the like, if you stayed out of sight and paid attention. After years of the theoretical deterrent to crime simply not being here, crime just… wasn't deterred.
Merchants were content to operate pretty much out in the open, with only the thinnest of pretexts, like drinking alcohol out of a paper bag in public: As long as it wasn't completely exposed, nobody was immediately obliged to do anything about it.
Which was it took me thirty-eight minutes to find a drug transaction in progress.
First was the buyer, who looked old enough to be my mom, with pockmarked features on her pale skin, and mousled brown hair that fit the raggedy quality of her clothing. She looked… well, perhaps not in the best of states. Truthfully, most of my attention wasn't on the customer, so I barely paid her all that much mind.
It was on the dealers handing her the product. The guy doing most of the bartering and arguing with the woman was in his twenties, black, short hair and clothing mostly of a cheap but comfortable enough cut for the weather. Then the second was ironically not dressed all that differently from me, something I noticed but shoved to the back of my mind.
And what they were selling? Pills? Crack? Meth? I had no idea, and frankly, I didn't care. They all could ruin lives just as easily in my eyes, so instead I just felt anticipation in my veins build up, as the Grimoire seemed to feel much the same, throwing out a tendril… and latching on. But I had to grind my teeth in annoyance when I realized that the power granted just wasn't fitting for me right now.
The Black Tower(400CP) - Originally called Ambi's Tower, it gained it's more fearsome name when Veran froze time and forced the townspeople to work on it day and day. I would say night, but that never came. Regardless, this tower is not actually finished yet. Instead, the tower amplifies any 'evil' abilities you might have. The power of darkness and shadows and hatred and so forth, not just powers you use for evil. As you force people to work on it, the amount it amplifies will increase. Not by how tall it is or anything like that, but by how much the workers have suffered during the process. It's location is actually somewhat irrelevant on account of you being able to put it anywhere you want. But, once the first brick is laid, you aren't going to be able to move the tower until you rebuild it next jump. Thankfully the power boost doesn't reset the way the structure itself does.
Even if the wizard deep inside of me desperately wanted a sinister black tower to rule from, it just wasn't practical for most of the Domain powers, for me to have them.
Thankfully, I had something else to distract me from the distant irritation I felt.
Oakskin was activated with a little bit of effort and thought. Flesh thickening, skin turning increasingly numb in a way that would have been worrying if I hadn't tested out the spell earlier. Conjure Familiar meanwhile brought forth a spectral, savage wolf from… somewhere. I wasn't going to spend too much time looking into whatever I summoned, and if it was a Daedra or not.
Staring at them from around the corner, I took in their appearances a little more closely, eyeing up a certain bulge near the back of one of their waistbands. "… Go for the one on the right. Take him down to the ground, but don't break any bones or anything."
Wolves in the wild had a pretty strong bite, and mine was some sort of souped-up Skyrim murder-beast specimen, so yes, I was mildly concerned about him mauling someone to death. Those instructions ought to be enough to keep it from happening. Meanwhile, as the wolf began to lope off, I was right behind it, electricity crackling across my digits from me spinning up Sparks.
The three people out in the open had heard the sound of movement, and instinctively turned towards the growl that was coming their way. All of them twitched and reacted in different ways.
Ironically, the customer did the smartest thing they could in their situation. They took their drugs and ran off with the fleet movement of someone desperate to hold onto their supply. The two drug dealers were a little different.
One of them froze and then was slammed with an electric shock that immediately made them spasm and jerk in place. I'd probably toned my spell down to a taser, compared to what Sparks could normally put out, so he should be fine. Even if I was a little worried about how hard he'd hit the ground, as I jogged behind my familiar.
It was sprinting right for the guy who'd had the clever idea to go for his gun, and he even managed to get it out quickly enough to raise the pistol in the air. His one failing was that he didn't know whether or not to aim for me, the Cape that was shooting lightning, or the spectral wolf that was nearly right on top of him. Those few seconds of indecision were what cost him the fight.
"GAH!"
Having a police dog come and bite your arm, at full force, is an experience. I helped out with the K9 unit at my base once, back in my old life, and I still felt it through the safety jacket I was wearing when they sicced a Belgian Malinois on me. Comparatively speaking, a full-grown wolf doing the same without any armor to speak of?
Yeah, the guy dropped like a rock. Yowling, yelling, and all sorts of expletives spilling forth from his mouth. In his shoes, I'd probably be much the same.
"GODFUCKIN'DAMNIT! HEEEEEELP!"
Was it strange the entire sudden bout of violence had me feeling… distant? Like I was watching it happen to someone else, and not myself? The blood that I saw from the bite, the way I'd so readily taken down the other dealer with an errant cast of lightning?
Like most Americans, even those with military experience, the extent of violence I'd seen in my day-to-day life was filtered through the lenses of media coverage, video games, and entertainment. It was one thing to see it in your favorite movie, and another to see the actual consequences of it in real life. And that was where I was getting caught up on.
There was blood from him, but not of an amount I thought was lethal. Dog bites could be lethal, but generally speaking, unless you were a small child or a major artery was nicked? Chances were you'd survive it. There might be scars, but I didn't get the feeling this guy was going to bleed out or be permanently maimed by my actions.
That was the only balm on my conscience I got.
"Let em' go," I commanded the familiar, and it obeyed instantly, while I gave the man on the ground a shock for good measure, seeing him go twitching and groaning. And that was the fight over.
It didn't make me feel nearly as victorious as I'd thought I'd feel, given the whole thing had to take under thirty seconds. There wasn't a big, blowout Cape-fight, or a prolonged shootout. Just the simple execution of my planning, as basic as it was. Buff myself, summon the doggo, electrocute. It just made that formerly excited feeling inside of me look hollow, rather than justified.
On one hand, I'd beaten up some drug dealers, and as I rifled through their pockets for a paltry sum of two hundred dollars and burned their drugs, I was supposedly making the streets a little safer. Looking at it from another perspective, I didn't feel all that heroic in that moment, not with the relative power disparity between me and those Merchants.
It was kind of absurd, when you looked at it, how my best chance of becoming a trusted figure people were willing to accept tinkertech and healing from, to become the next Dragon, happened to be by starting out shocking people till they fell unconscious.
While I didn't find myself agreeing with all of the policies of the Protectorate and PRT, I found myself a lot more understanding of why they were in place. In a world where a chubby sixteen-year-old boy could take down two fully grown men, just because I had powers, ordinary people being uncomfortable or afraid of parahumans was a lot easier to wrap my mind around. I would be too, if I wasn't in the empowered few.
Blessedly, the Grimoire decided now was the time to distract me with a new perk.
Sonic Emmisions (Sailor Moon - 400CP) - Your hair accessories are blessed with a power you can replicate, with some effort--when distress grips you, no matter what, any scream or cry you emit will send out sonic shockwaves through the air. Your loud voice is amplified to earsplitting levels--but you'll be immune to it. Your enemy, however, will suffer painfully.
This… didn't seem like a great option for me. For one, I didn't have hair accessories even if I kind of wanted to grow out dreadlocks, and if I did, it would be purely to facilitate this power- Assuming anything I stuck in my hair would channel this perk, anyway.
For another, it seemed nigh uncontrollable, only working when I was in distress, something that was less likely than ever to happen now that I could cast artificial magical bravery on myself and was physically rewarded for doing so.
It did offer a sonic attack, which you could make work as your main power, as Cricket of the E88 had demonstrated, albeit not usually in this form. And the immunity to your screams might offer a defense against her, if she chose to rise above her usual subsonic frequencies- But it might not. It probably wouldn't, actually, given how she used it.
If this was a one-hundred-point power, I might have considered it. But this was four hundred points, instead- I could have gotten four powers like my magic circuits for the same price or four powers like my novice mastery of Nirn magics. It was far wiser to roll the dice on those at my next opportunity than to waste so much on a mediocre blaster power.
Pulling out one of the drug dealer's burner phones, I lazily dialed nine-one-one and waited for someone to pick up on the other end.
"Brockton Bay PD, what's your emergency?"
"I'm a Cape, Folklord. I just took down two Merchant drug dealers on Penn and 1st, and their drugs are-" I looked down, and winced as I slapped my face with my free hand. I'd destroyed the drugs. The illegal drugs were the sole evidence that a crime had taken place here. That old chestnut.
Hopefully, their guns weren't legally registered to them, or they had something else illegal the police could take note of. Otherwise, I'd be looking really stupid when someone reviewed this pretty crappy bust.
"-Uh, in a no longer serviceable condition, I guess? Do you guys come and pick these guys up during this sort of thing, or…?"
There was a pause on the other end of the line before the young female voice continued. "… We'll send a patrol car by to pick them up and check on them."
"They should be fine, just tazed a little. One of them has a dog bite." Dog being something of an understatement.
There was an inhalation of air that felt like it was going to prelude another question from the operator. Probably questions I didn't want to answer, or couldn't. So I did the logical thing and hung up, tossing the phone, before beginning to jog away at speed.
Not that I wasn't willing to talk to the cops, but my socially awkward ass wouldn't clear anything up. That, and I couldn't imagine they wouldn't alert the PRT and Protectorate about my presence either. Was I ready to have any sort of real dialogue with the powers that be in the Bay? Nope.
This was for all sorts of reasons, but I gave it some more thought as I ran away on autopilot. The postmortem of the fight revealed a couple of things to me, one among them was the fact that I should have just tailed them back to wherever they were based. Or, I dunno, loitered around and tried to see if more dealers showed up? Kept a cooler head, rather than getting twitchy and overexcited to be a Hero?
Being more considerate of the chance I could have accidentally caught up the customer in my spells? Doing less damage, or being more careful of the damage I did? It was a swirl of emotions, but I'd been mediocre at best with dealing with my thoughts in my old life. In my new one, hopped up on teenage hormones, that even-keel mindset of mine tended to run hotter or colder than I'd like. The extremes were so much closer than I remembered them being at this age, but that was likely just a function of time divorcing me from remembering what it was like to be a teen.
It didn't help that I was dealing with a lot of stuff, and letting my emotional outlet be beating up criminals was what plenty of Capes did. That didn't mean it was healthy behavior in the slightest. I'd have to take a closer look at myself later and turn my thoughts to other things, like the response from the authorities.
The Protectorate wasn't a bad deal for your average Hero but for someone like me? With the potential for such explosive growth in power? I'd be hamstrung by their bureaucracy and regulations. Let alone the fact that as a teenager, and ward of the state, I'd become an actual Ward of the state in the scenario I was recruited or outed as a parahuman. That was something I was trying to avoid. It wasn't as if I couldn't abandon the pretense of a civilian identity and just do this full-time, but I didn't think I had that burning drive in me for that sort of lifestyle.
Nor did I think I'd get a threat rating until I'd probably debuted a bit more of my powerset, though. Beyond the lightning-fast combat I'd been in, and the doubts they'd have about whether or not a parahuman was even involved… the PRT would likely hold off. That was a bit of breathing room, but not a whole lot given the elephant in the room that wouldn't ignore a possible new parahuman in the Bay.
Coil had a disgusting amount of moles in the organization, in addition to having a power that made it very easy to test the boundaries of anyone new that triggered in the area. I don't want to imagine what he'd do if he found out some of the things I could do, but blessedly, I'm pretty sure Lisa couldn't figure it out without more data to feed her power. More or less, I look like a grab-bag Cape on any video of that last fight, not the power-generating Trump I am in reality.
However, with the mediocre pulls of the Grimoire, I knew I was going to have to step things up a notch with my training over the next week. I had something like a month left to derail Canon and take the entire city off of the golden path of chaos and mayhem it was on, so I was banking on my abilities being of some help in that regard later.
For now, I was headed home to get the images of convulsing drug dealers and blood out of my head.
Spoiler: Author's Note
This chapter is something of a transitory chapter, as the protagonist doesn't really gain any perks, but becomes a bit more acquainted with their powers and the nature of violence. As always I'm very eager to hear what people think, but furthermore what they think I should focus on or expand upon when it comes to my writing. That's the only way I can improve, to hear what I need to fix. All the same, thank you for reading, and stay tuned for the next chapter.
Chapter 3
Grinding Restoration training was painful. I didn't mean that metaphorically, I meant that very much in the most literal way possible. Thanks to Equilibrium, I found a pretty nifty way to keep my magicka afloat. The downside was that way was quite possibly the most excruciating way I'd learned to practice.
Not in the sort of pain that'd have you writhing on the ground. It was a more profound, bone-deep sort of ache that reverberated through my entire body when I used it. My life energies were being pulled for the sole purpose of fueling my magick. If I had regenerated quicker or was more sturdy as a baseline, this exhaustive process wouldn't have been so bad. As I was now?
Well, I was getting good at casting Healing. Let's just put it like that.
Casting the spell on other people was beyond me right now, but that was just a function of time and energy spent with the school of magic. Clever Craft handed me the skill of a novice in most of the common forms of magic from Mundus, with the skill to go along with it but not much more. Everything was fundamentally built up gradually, with my having to reinvent first principles in an entire field of magic.
Forget using my magic circuits trying to reinvent magecraft - it was an entirely different beast than the relatively mundane magical traditions of Mundus. Practicing Restoration in out-of-the-way places wasn't as exciting as, say, my Destruction magick. Regardless, the progress made on how much of that pool of energy I could safely manage continued to trickle in slowly. Having twenty high-quality magic circuits helped with that. Bit by bit, day by day, I was getting better, tiny step by tiny step… but progress was progress. Even if it felt like I was using a bit of a cheat exploit to do it.
That was the point of the Grimoire in the end though, wasn't it? Getting all these disparate spells and abilities, and then making them work in the end. For better or worse that was the crux of what I was trying to do.
Anyway, with all my magical studying and progress in that regard? I couldn't say the same about the Grimoire.
Feeling it go back to the regular, sluggish rate of growth was like pulling teeth. It made me antsy to get back into the thick of things, immediately plunge myself into a life-or-death situation, and see what juicy goodness the Grimoire would reward me with. There was a reason why I'd avoided gambling and gacha in my last life, and it was because I knew I had the sort of addictive personality that would inevitably get wrapped up in the delights of that specific brand of vice.
Drugs, alcohol? Odell sleeps. Rolling the dice on what random cosmic power I could get? That was the real shit.
I nearly cried in relief when the Grimoire reached out and made a new connection with something I could buy.
Spoiler: Wolf Pack (100CP)
Wolf Pack (Warhammer Fantasy -100CP) - A Hunter needs his pets to be controlled. Why bother training a Sabretusk if it'll snap your neck in the night or run the first time a big beastie lands in front of you? You're a good, experienced hand with taming animals but it's once they're tamed that you show your worth. Once you've tamed a beast, it'll never disobey you. Even if one of those big ugly Chaos Dragons is staring down your poochie, it'll stand its ground beside you without a blink. If a witch or wizard tries to use beast magic to control one of your pets, they won't be entirely powerless but those magic users will find it far more difficult to influence any of your hounds, particularly when you are there with them.
This wasn't awful by any metric, and I was fairly sure that the Grimoire would hand me some actual animal companions eventually. Or give me the ability to Biotinker up some, which was a can of worms I was kicking down the road for the future. Instead, I focused on the practical side of things to the best of my ability and tried to consider how this perk could be used for me.
One of my main spells right now was Conjure Familiar, which put out a pretty aggressive wolf, so having the ability to tame and direct it better was invaluable. And if I'm being honest, if I ever had to deal with Bitch, getting along with her dogs was likely going to be the best way to get on her good side. More than anything I could say or do, being good with dogs was probably what would earn her approval.
With that lingering in the back of my mind I accepted the new perk, and let the flood of knowledge come into my mind. I'd never known all that much about training or taming animals, but the additional Master ability to ensure that whatever animal I'd tamed would never disobey me? Invaluable.
I didn't mind finding a nice, out-of-the-way part of town to summon my familiar at night, and then proceed to give it all the pets, scratches, and belly rubs that such a good dog deserved. The wolf seemed a little confused at the lack of a violent purpose in the beginning but quickly relented under the assault of my hands. I needed to give it a name too, but I wasn't in any particular rush for that.
Still, I needed to relax a little from my experimentations with magic, and find something that was for just me to do with my time. Maybe get to know someone who wasn't Rio, given the boy lived with me, so our hanging out just happened by default.
How bad could it be to get to know some people at school?
"Alright you uncultured swine, I'll accept that you're not familiar with Mobile Suit Gundam. But you should be," I professed. "It's the foundation of the real robot subgenre of mecha."
I sat with Greg and Sparky at lunch, in a move that might not have been socially great for me. Thankfully I was well and above beyond the opinions of teenagers. Even if the rest of my grey matter was running on hormonal sixteen-year-old hardware, my software was that of a twenty-five-year-old man.
Though someone could argue that as an adult, I should have been above arguing with literal teenagers. But as a disgusting weaboo, I felt an obligation to argue with Greg on the finer merits of what passed for Earth-Bet anime. Even I had my pride to defend in this situation.
"Yeah, but it was a glorified toy commercial to sell gunpla kits," Greg pointed out. "At least, that's what I read on P.H.O."
I can't even argue with that, because it's objectively true. But still, it's the principle of the thing. "Yeah, well, it's got a lot of subtlety and subtext. Tomino just wanted an excuse to write about traumatized teenagers in giant robots, and his war drama, so I think it's more impressive he hoodwinked Sunrise into making it at all."
That got a click of his tongue, as the blonde rolled his eyes at me. "I'm more of a Space Runaway Ideon sort of guy. Have you seen it, or Aura Battler Dunbine?"
That got a goddamn scoff of my own to come out, arms crossing in front of my chest. "Have I seen it? First off, Ideon is a certified hood classic, even if I think I prefer Aura Battler Dunbine more. It's a good precursor to modern isekai anime."
Nearby, Sparky was looking… sleepy? Tired? Eating his food with the enthusiasm of a coma patient, as he was an unwilling bystander to our argument on the finer points of mecha anime? I may be dragging my high school social career behind a shed to be shot, but it was hard to find enlightened gentlemen in my new life to connect with regarding anime.
Rio watched some cartoons, but most Earth-Bet anime had taken something of a nosedive after Kyushu got sunk. Leviathan truly was the most dangerous Endbringer. He might kill nations, but he slew weaboos in the cradle before they could ever truly be established in America, by slaying most of the anime industry in his attack in the nineties.
If I managed to become absurdly wealthy, I was going to take advantage of America's massive Japanese expat population and see about trying to get some new anime series made. What was the point of my otherworldly knowledge if I couldn't port in pop culture I liked to entertain myself?
Was this even remotely productive, or good for me? No. But it felt nice to have a good way to vent and talk with people. I must have been more lonely than I'd realized, but that made sense. No man was an island, even if some people mistook isolation for independence. As if I was rewarded for some esoteric realization, the Grimoire chucked a new perk my way as I picked at my food.
Spoiler: Maid of the Sea(400CP)
Maid of the Sea(Peter Pan - 400CP) - Mermaids are spirits of the water, and thus have amazing control over the element. You can control whirlpools, summon floods, or sink ships in terrible storms with but a few airy gestures from your hand. Most of all, you are skilled with creating and controlling bubbles. You can trap victims in human-sized bubbles so that they can breathe underwater (until the bubble shrivels up), or even trap all of a victim's laughter into a bubble for you to play with as you please (fun fact - did you know that without laughter in their heart, a person will eventually die?). Whenever you cry, all the water around you can erupt in a chaotic storm.
This was another rejection, and it was for more reasons than my being distracted by the argument with Greg.
Hydrokinetics, much like Human Masters, got something of a suspect look on Earth-Bet, at least to my recollections. Nor were they very common, or strong, compared to Leviathan. This power was nifty, but I'd rather not have the massive amounts of property damage I suspected came with the territory with this power.
Also, how often would I even be fighting at sea? Ideally not at all.
"You're fundamentally looking at the genre all wrong, though!" Greg boisterously exclaimed, throwing up his arms in the air. "Isekai is cheapened by mecha, or cheat items, because you're supposed to be the one with the power in a power fantasy, y'know?!"
Another surprisingly salient point. Greg is a passionate guy, and sometimes I can see how he'd be a little much for people, but he's got a good heart. Sort of. Fundamentally. The point is, it's somewhere inside of him, and he just needed a bit of a nudge to get to the point where he wasn't an awkward wreck.
Was I going to be the guy to get him there? In all truthfulness, likely not. That didn't mean I couldn't pal around and indulge in some harmless tomfoolery when I was at school.
The next few days were spent chipping away off and on in regards to Restoration, but especially trying to bridge what I knew of the school with what I could do now. At the foundational level, it was control and manipulation of life forces. Magicka was weird to meditate on, tending to mutate and warble in strange ways when I added Prana to the mix.
But there were signs of progress.
The new spell I was making was something that already existed, and in theory, should have been simple. Even an apprentice-ranked Restoration mage should be able to accomplish the healing of others, and with the large breadth of knowledge, I had in regards to other spells that exuded magic outward from the body? Reverse engineering backward was feasible for a new spell that way.
I had something of a prototype set up and ready to go, but the hard part would be finding someone wounded enough that it'd work on. That meant either looking for trouble or looking for someone to help when Saturday night came rolling around. The good and bad things about Brockton Bay? There was always something going on. You just had to go looking for trouble in the right places.
Last time I'd tried my luck around the neighborhoods where the trainyards and residential blocks met and intermingled, mostly to avoid having to deal with anyone else but the Merchants. This time, I was aiming for the spot where the trainyards met the docks, which was in the most technical sense, Undersiders territory. Granted, I doubted I was going to run into any of them out and about, given just about all of them had day-to-day business that took up their time.
At this point in the timeline, they weren't even a gang that held turf in the conventional sense of the word. Besides Bitch, I don't think any of them had that psychological drive to even do so, with their status as Warlords being something they just sort of fell into after Leviathan came into the city.
The moment I found somewhere nice and out of the way, I got changed and ready for the night ahead. I began my patrol the way anyone skulking about at night does, by trying to stick to the shadows, the alleyways, and generally staying off the main streets if I had an option.
That meant things were slower going than I'd like, but it was just a fact of life that I had to deal with. I was seriously starting to bemoan a lack of method for getting around, to the point that I was extremely excited for whatever mobility option I was going to be provided by the Grimoire. A mount, the ability to fly or teleport, it didn't matter, because I'd take anything at this point.
Also, the fact that I still looked like a burglar wasn't helping things. Granted, the moment I did something Cape-related, people wouldn't look at me like a thief, but instead a Villain. Was that an upgrade?
What I would say was that sneaking around in the night was relatively peaceful, as most people who were out at this time of night like me were either unfortunate enough to have business that took them there, or had something else going on that meant they couldn't pay any attention to Brockton Bay weirdness that didn't concern them. I kept alert, and my eyes peeled for any strange occurrences around me that might be a prelude to more trouble.
But as ten minutes turned into thirty, then into an hour, and then an hour and a half? I was starting to think that there just might not be anything that I'd run into for me to try and solve. A part of me was somewhat relieved given the way my last outing into heroism had gone when I hadn't solved much of anything with beating up and mugging two random drug dealers.
That had been a wake-up call for me, but mostly in that, it gave me more of a pertinent awareness of the purpose of violence as a Hero. Even earlier in that night, I'd mused that senseless patrols did nothing usually, and if you wanted to take a real dent out of crime, you had to target their money and their means of exerting control on territory. AKA, putting away Capes in jail. That wasn't even mentioning how many other ways you could be a hero in your day-to-day life.
Once I got the handle on Healing Hands, it wasn't glamorous, but there were genuinely plenty of people who wouldn't shy away from parahuman healing. That was beyond the fact that there were other ways I could assist people, like emergency services, and stuff like that.
I needed to look at myself and my powers like an asset with appreciating value. I wasn't just some poor schmuck shoved into this world, but someone who had to live and breathe in it, while also having the capability to do more than just punching criminals. Genuinely making Brockton Bay and the world at large a better place would be simple, once I had the power to. Musing on all of that, I barely managed to pay attention to a strange smell that made me wrinkle my nose, as I looked up from my hunched posture.
And found myself with the familiar scent of smoke and burning wood.
That immediately got my attention, and following my nose in a short jog didn't end up disappointing when I arrived at what had to be an apartment building at the beginning of a blaze.
Have you ever seen a fire in real life? I'm not talking a tiny campfire or a one from a grill. It's one thing to see a flame on television, where you can distance yourself from the heat, the smoke, and the animal panic of people trying to escape the building in a hectic rush. The cries of those still left inside. But seeing it in person was a whole different beast.
The top floor of the apartment complex glowed in the night with angry orange light, as the conflagration threatened to engulf it all. Tongues of flame licked down slowly, stifled only by the dampness in the air and in the brick, but undoubtedly greedily spreading inside the building. I felt the heat that radiated from it, saw the smoke rising into the sky like a pyre, and tasted the smell of burnt brick on my tongue.
Standing there on the sidewalk… I won't lie, I froze.
People were in danger, potentially even dying in front of me inside of that building, and I froze. Sure, I managed to beat up some unpowered drug dealers, but was that such a big deal? This was… a very, very different beast entirely, and I could feel the pressure getting to me already. Should I just leave? Should I even get involved here? Was this better left to the professionals, who had more than a little practiced Frostbite spell?
Most of the time when I spiraled into my turgid, stiff panic, it took me a while to break out of it. I was a simple guy, the kind who either began to move and do something stupid or froze when confronted with a crisis. The Grimoire helped me out of that funk by tossing me a nifty little perk.
Spoiler: Magically Learned - Lore of Beasts(200CP)
Magically Learned - Lore of Beasts(Warhammer Fantasy - 200CP) - Butchers all learn the magic of the Maw first and it is their primary focus throughout life. The Ogre mages are capable of learning how to harness the Lore of Beasts, Lore of Death or the Lore of Heavens. For each purchase of this perk you learn skilled proficiency in one of these Lores. The Lore of Beasts focuses on spells that empower or transform the user or his allies as well as commanding the beasts of the world.
… I'll take it, and think about the consequences of it later.
With a mental tug, I felt the knowledge of the Lore of Beasts breeze into me, and the spells that came with it. This specifically did not open me up to the winds of Ghur, but honestly, that was fine with me. Fucking around with Chaos was a great way to end up dead, mutated, or unleashing something I couldn't stop on Earth-Bet.
Besides, Warhammer mages to my understanding were funnels for power from the Immaterium, not the generators of it themselves. They needed to filter that Chaos into something more workable, which is where the trouble began for them. Me on the other hand? I produced magical energies and worked my magic through sheer discipline and skill, for good or ill. They'd suffice as a power source for Ghur spells with some work.
This Lore was by no means useless, but it only made me curse myself for giving up on the Mermaid perk earlier in the week. Still, I couldn't have predicted a fire to break out right when I'd gone on patrol.
By this point I was already walking towards the entrance of the apartment building, all while people did their best to try and get out. I could still hear the cries of and screams of tenants inside, starting to panic in their mad rush to flee. None of the Ghur spells would even remotely be useful to me at that moment, but thankfully, I did have some spells that I could use as I jogged inside the building.
Smoke stung my nose as I moved past the threshold and deeper inside, leaping up multiple steps at a time as I looked for flames I could find. And wherever I found them beginning to grow and lap at the interiors of the old tenement building, I put Frostbite to work. The obnoxiously high range and potent effect meant that I didn't need to keep up the stream of power for long either to put out each fire, as I systematically worked my way up the building.
Fires could build up at differing speeds, depending on the accelerant used in their construction. That was half of the way fire marshals were able to investigate them, looking at what caught flame and following the pattern to the source. Judging by the spread, this felt more like a fire that'd been built up not from arson, but just some pure happenstance, like an electrical problem. A lot of old apartment buildings tended to go that way when their owners didn't want to update their infrastructure due to costs.
Mostly for the first few floors, I wasn't even rescuing anyone. Buying some time from the flames that were beginning to lap downwards, and I got the feeling that most people barely were even paying me a moment's notice as they rushed to get their belongings out of whatever rooms and apartments were threatened.
Compared to fighting drug dealers? It wasn't glamorous, or exciting in the same way, but that didn't make it any less heroic at the end of the day.
Smoke stung my lungs and made it hard to breathe, as I coughed and threatened to hack a lung at the slightest provocation. The heat was sweltering, even if Frostbite helped to soothe it, as I ascended each level. Logically, I knew that this wasn't smart, wasn't as intelligent as I could have gone about things, but emotionally?
I was tired of waiting for the power to change things and help people on my own. If the Grimoire wasn't going to hand me perks and magic that applied to my situation, I'd make my way on my own.
But the smoke inhalation was starting to get to me.
This building had somewhere in the range of six floors, and I was only on the fourth when I started to feel myself get woozy. That's when I started to try something I'd only tentatively been practicing on my own: Structural Analysis.
Functionally the precursor to all forms of Projection, I'd messed around a bit with it mostly on simple, straightforward items, that I then carefully tried to replicate. Iron rings, blocks of wood, anything that nobody would be paying a lot of attention to if I screwed up and accidentally destroyed it. I got the basics down, and I'd even started to use it on my body, but this was the first time I'd ever started to use Reinforcement on myself.
But there was never such a great motivator as a danger to not screw up. Feeling my magic circuits activate, tentatively, as I spun up some Reinforcement on my torso. Feeling out skin, muscle, tendons, bone, and the blood vessels in my lungs begin to be girded with as much delicacy as I could manage.
It took more concentration than I'd like to admit as I rose with each step in the staircase to keep it going, if only because I wasn't some magus hotshot that could do high-speed incantations with ease. This was tough, but doable. Sustainable was a whole other ball game, but I'd cross that bridge when I came to it.
It wasn't till I hit the fifth floor that things hit a breaking point.
The sixth floor was a total write-off, but the fifth floor was where the flames were the worst they could be and not unnavigatable. This was where a good deal of the smoke venting outside was coming from, and judging by the cries of someone in one of the apartments, there was still a person trapped inside. Which checked out, given the way to their apartment was on fire.
That'd make it hard to escape in a pinch. Furrowing my brow, I dug deep and pushed my Frostbite spell even harder, magicka gushing out in the form of frost that began to extinguish any flame in its path. The almost overpowering heat was the only thing keeping any ice crystals from forming like they normally did, as I stumbled towards the door to the apartment, kicking down the door in my rush to get inside.
The source of the screaming was made relatively self-evident, if only because there was some charred debris that'd collapsed on top of some twenty-something white guy. A pretty normal-looking dude with no features I'd remark as standout, if it wasn't for the fact that he was barely coherent and freaking from the fact that he was likely going to die, and suffering from smoke inhalation if I had to guess.
Moving quickly to his side, a touch of reinforcement in my limbs made just strong enough to nudge the debris off of his body. "Stay with me! We're getting you out of her-"
CRASH!
Oh, what was that? Just the sound of the floor above us starting to give way to the flames? God, my heart practically jumped up into my throat when flaming debris crashed down, but on the bright side, it wasn't on us. Unfortunately, it was right in the way of the entrance, and I wasn't feeling too hot about my chances of getting out of there that way.
Normally when I'd failed like this, I'd break down, get frustrated, and maybe tear up a little. I'm not a particularly strong person, not really. Like most people, I'm about as courageous as the situation and my capabilities allow me to be, and on the slightest real opposition, I'd normally leave for better pastures. But here and now, at this moment, I didn't have a choice.
If I didn't pull a miracle out of my ass in a minute or two, we were fucking dead.
So like most of the time when my brain couldn't cut it, my body reacted. All twitch instinct, no higher thought, just sheer, monkey panic. Moving to pick up the guy coughing below me, it was a very awkward bridal carry, only made possible by the Reinforcement that was burning me alive from the inside, while I was threatened with the same from the fire around us.
Step one of my lizard brain's master plan: Pick up the guy.
Step two of my lizard brain's master plan: Run towards the window.
Step three of my lizard brain's master plan: Blast the window out with Frostbite.
Step four of my lizard brain's master plan: Hope Reinforcement could keep me alive on the way down.
Seemingly the Grimoire shared my skepticism and doubt about the situation as a whole. The resulting perk felt like more of a pity offering than anything else.
Spoiler: Gate of Souls(600CP)
Gate of Souls(Legend of Zelda - 600CP) - Like the anomaly found within this world, you too now have access to a kind of personal Gate of Souls. The Gate of Souls is a portal that connects to all of time, but it requires someone skilled with magic to truly pull on its potential.
Someone with some skill can use the Gate of Souls to peer into the past whenever and wherever they please, watching whatever and learning whatever they can find while scrying. More powerful Sorcerers and Sorceresses however can do more than just look though.
Those with great magical skill and power can use the Gate of Souls as a conduit for summoning objects, individuals and creatures from past eras into the current one. It was through this application that Cia was able to swell her army's ranks with monsters.
Beyond the incredible abilities of even Cia, only made possible with something as powerful as the completed Triforce, the Gate of Souls can even be used as a gate for transporting entire places from past eras as they existed back then, with all they contain, and juxtaposing them over the current era.
Insanity.
Right when I was potentially leaping to my death, the Grimoire decided to tempt me with some absolute chicanery of the highest order. I had… too many questions about the mechanics of how this power even worked. The psychometry was useful, but there were other Grimoire powers and perks that managed that sort of feat.
Wait, why am I thinking about this right now? With an errant thought, I rejected the distracting perk. It could have been cool to have, but I'm not sure if I'm responsible enough to handle fucking around with time.
Around me it felt like the world had slowed down to a crawl around me as I leaped out of the nearest window, the techno-blue lines of active magecraft sprawling across my body at a crawl. Reinforcement was pretty much the only way I was going to survive this, so I took stock of what I had at my disposal at that moment.
Girding my entire body with magical energy, primed for the moment I hit the ground. Oh, it made my magic circuits burn like nothing I'd thought possible, but pain had never been much of a problem for me. Even in my old life, my pain response had been delayed, if not modest, and chances were I was going to be ignoring something critical after the fact. Small miracles I could heal myself from whatever I broke or beat out of shape on the way down.
The guy in my arms could have been reinforced, but I just didn't have enough magical energy for it. My magic circuits were working overdrive to produce what I had now, even if they were of a pretty high quality. Smoke and flame billowed out behind me as I launched us out through the window, sailing through the air…
… And beginning to fall to the earth.
The impact was better than expected. By that, I mostly meant that I wasn't dead. Nothing had broken in ways that I couldn't fix on the spot. Sure, I felt a spike of blinding pain in my femurs, something compressed uncomfortably and WRONGLY in my spine, and the distant promise of something going awry with my ribs. But if you disregarded all of those little issues, it wasn't anything that I couldn't fix after the fact.
Unmitigated success in my eyes, even if tears pricked in my eyes and I grit my teeth so hard I almost bit off the tip of my tongue.
The guy in my arms was still alive and promptly dropped to the ground unceremoniously from the low squat I landed in. Compared to being burned alive under debris, I'd say that this was a marked improvement in how he'd have ended up without my involvement. It was a good thing, an undeniably positive result.
I tried to remember that specific feeling as I fought the way my body wanted to just curl up and die on the spot.
The moment I dropped reinforcement was the moment everything felt like it hit me all at once. My jaw loosened as I coughed, hacking up my lungs through the bandanna across my mouth, sucking in deep, blessed lungfuls of air. Distantly I was aware of the call of the fire sirens coming our way, of the crowd of people that'd gathered around the scene rubbernecking, but I really couldn't give a shit about any of that right now.
Beside me on the street, the guy was alive, if not in a great condition. But it didn't look like he'd die, and it was grossly illegal to try and test your parahuman healing on other people without their consent to begin with. So instead I picked myself up off the ground on shaky legs, hands beginning to glow as I pressed them against my chest and cast Healing on myself.
Blessed, soothing relief.
Bones that were cracked or suffering hairline fractures knit back together as directed magicka suffused my form. Organs that had been smushed or bruised getting the same treatment, overworked or ripped tendons and muscles being massaged back into place. This was the first time I'd been on the receiving end of any significant healing from my magic, and it made me thankful for the decision I'd made to take Clever Craft. Around me, people watched but generally didn't approach.
People in Brockton Bay were naturally and rightfully leery of parahumans, given the Villain population in this city. Thankfully none of them were looking at me with outright unfriendly expressions as I picked myself up off of the street, moving to the curb with a limp to continue my rejuvenation of the injuries I'd picked up.
It was going slow enough that I was still around when the fire trucks and police showed up, yet they gave me a wide berth after talking to some of the bystanders watching the blaze. Lazily, I watched the efforts to tide and control the flames, which luckily didn't seem to be passing to any of the other buildings. Small blessings, I suppose.
In the mildly crispy state I was in, I wasn't going anywhere in a hurry to begin with. My magicka was shallow, my magic circuits were on the verge of boiling me from the inside out if I used too much, and I was just flat-out too tired to leave the scene. If well and truly pressed, I could probably muster up enough for something, but not enough for anything other than desperate flight out of a given situation.
That was probably why I wasn't too surprised when the Wards rolled up minutes later because someone tattled to the authorities a Cape was having a good, relaxing sit in public.
Truly, no good deed goes unpunished.
We were at a part of the city where there was the faintest hint of criminal activity instead of entrenched gang presence, so naturally, they'd sent the Wards on patrol with the best capability to get the hell out of dodge.
So far in my new life, I hadn't interacted with any parahumans in a Cape identity yet, or seen any in person. So seeing their highly customized, well-designed costumes sent me for a loop. A sort of disconnect from my memories as Odell in this world, and my memories from my old life. They looked more like high-quality cosplayers to my sensibilities, but the people around us didn't see them like that at all.
They saw the Wards and by extension trusted parahuman members of the community at large. PR was a big thing for them, the way the powers that be assured the populace at large that yes, things were in fact in hand. That same adherence to PR was one of the reasons why I wasn't sure if I could ever join the Wards or Protectorate, though. I was… socially blunted, at least when not talking about things directly in my line of interest. It also made sense why my actions weren't just implicitly trusted because I didn't have that institutional backing behind anything I did.
Vista and Kid Win approached, not moving too quickly, but slow enough and from an angle that I could see. Standard descalation and peaceful behavior, which was part and parcel with dealing with new Capes. You never knew if you were dealing with someone twitchy or not.
Thankfully, they were just dealing with someone mildly sore across their entire body. I was going to be one giant bruise in the morning, but I was alive. Sometimes you couldn't ask for more than that.
"Hey there," Kid Win greeted, soaring over on his hoverboard, which was nearly ground level at this point. "I'm Kid Win, and this is Vista," he introduced as if you could escape Cape culture and paraphernalia in a city that had any kind of PRT and Protectorate presence.
"We heard a report you helped out here with the fire. Are you in need of medical assistance too…?"
Probably, but I couldn't and wouldn't accept.
I shook my head, waving their concerns away with a hand, while my other hand slowly pushed me to my feet. "I'm fine," I lied, like a filthy liar. "I've got a Brute rating. Just a bit sore and catchin' my breath after the fire."
Which was still ongoing, but having actual firemen capable of restraining it just meant that there was no real danger at this point to the environment at large. Just the collection of motley bystanders in this part of town. That, and anyone who wanted to rubberneck at the Capes talking.
"Are you willing to talk about what happened here?" Vista interjected, her visor making it a little difficult to tell exactly where her eyes were looking at. My awful costume? My mild injuries, evident from the limp in my step? The way I stared off into space after my Grimoire chucked something new at me?
Spoiler: Mermaid Games(300CP)
Mermaid Games(Peter Pan - 300CP) - Mermaids play all sorts of "innocent", devious tricks using their water magic, to distract people so they miss what the Mermaids are really up to. Charisma and deception-related abilities that you and allies use are enhanced whenever you are in the water or using water-related powers. In addition, your affinity for water-based powers increases.
Instant rejection, if only because I was feeling so personally attacked by an inanimate, unemotional interface in my mind. It desperately wanted to turn me into a mermaid for some reason.
Blinking, I sucked in a deep breath, painfully aware I'd left the conversation in a bit of an awkward lull. "Sorry, was out of it a little there. What did you say again?"
Vista and Kid Win shared a look loaded with meaning I couldn't even begin to decipher before Vista opened her mouth again. "Are you sure you don't need medical assistance? If you came back to base it'd be pretty simple to-"
I didn't give her the chance to continue, interrupting the blonde on the spot. "Again, I refuse. Just had to handle some power stuff. Distracted me for a moment when I wasn't expecting it."
Neither of them seemed pleased with that answer, or unsure if they believed it, but they accepted it for the moment. That's all I could ask for. "Well, we're hoping you could perhaps illuminate a little of what happened here, mister…?"
"Folklord." I was being a bit more laconic than the situation called for, but I'd rather they called me distant and standoffish in the inevitable meeting about me than outright hostile, or digging too deeply into my identity and powers.
"Folklord it is."
"As for what happened…" That was a rather simple explanation compared to the insanity of the last thirty or so minutes for me. "Not much to say. I was doing my second-ever patrol and I smelled smoke. Jogged over to investigate and found the building on fire, with no firemen in sight."
Jerking a thumb over at the smoldering apartment building to elucidate, I continued. "I've got a Blaster power that can cycle through a few different elemental blasts, and ice is one of 'em. When I heard the people inside making a ruckus, I knew I couldn't wait."
At the very least, this was a pretty straightforward and obvious act of heroism. Vista's minute but approving nod was evidence enough of that.
"The sixth floor was a no-go, too much fire. But the fifth was where I found a guy trapped underneath some debris. Moved it away, picked the guy up, was about to leave when I had to jump out the window cuz' bits of the top floor was coming down." It was partially collapsed even now, which didn't bode well for the structural integrity of the building in general, but you could fix that. The question was, would they?
It wasn't as if Brockton Bay was valuable real estate the same way it might have been decades past. The immense and common urban decay wouldn't have been so prevalent if that was the case.
That also reminded me. Technically I could have debuted my healing here and now, but it would have been awkward if I'd screwed it up while using someone as a guinea pig. "How's the guy doing? He looked alive when I jumped out, but…"
"He's fine," Vista assured me, raising a hand to forestall any concerns on my part. "Smoke inhalation, some minor burns, but nothing he won't live from with some medical attention."
Just hearing that made a weight that had been on my shoulders ease up, as I let out a long, hot exhale. "Good. That's… good. I wasn't sure if I'd gotten to him in time."
"I don't suppose we could convince you to come back to headquarters? We've got a robust support system for independent heroes who go through the official sign-up process. Or, the Wards-" Kid Win went on, really trying to sell me on this whole thing, especially the Wards. Probably because I wasn't doing a great job of hiding how young my voice was.
"… I'd sincerely rather not. At least, not right now. Maybe in the future?" I knew full well that I would never join the Protectorate or Wards if I remotely had a choice, doubly so when I gained a means of empowering normal people. The scope of my power just didn't play well when burdened with bureaucracy and politicking.
This didn't seem to be an entirely surprising answer for either of them, given the nods they gave in response. "That's fine. Just in case you run into some trouble though, here's my number. Heroes in Brockton Bay have to stick together, right?" Kid Win reached into his suit and pulled out a small business card.
I plucked it gently out of his hands, giving the Tinker a nod. At this point, I hadn't recovered, but I had enough magicka back to attempt what I was going to do to get out of there. Lore of the Beasts hadn't come in handy yet, but I figured this should prove its worth.
"Thanks for the card, then. Catch you later." And then I activated the spell I'd had on my mind.
Form of the Soaring Raven was weird.
As I poured into the Ghur spell's framework, I could feel my body begin to warp and shift, the clothing I was wearing shrinking along with my body. The closest analog I could think of describing it was the way the Animorphs made out their transformations in the books I'd read when I was a kid. Bones and muscles contorted, shrinking, as my arms slowly morphed into wings, black feathers blossoming across my body as my clothes and equipment melded with this new form. It wasn't a particularly pretty process, but rapid enough for the spell cast.
Form of the Soaring Raven was among a family of Ghur spells that allowed for transformation into animals, but I likely wasn't going to end up using the others outside of niche situations. Still, I'd finally gotten the ability to fly… even if it wasn't quite how I'd been picturing it in my head.
There was a faintly muffled "What the heck…" that came from Vista, as I finished transforming into my majestic new body.
A humble raven.
I retained my senses and self-identity in this form, but being in a bird's body was something of a mindfuck in ways I hadn't expected when I shifted. My eyesight was amped up to eleven though, while the feeling of having wings and feathers was not at all analogous to anything I'd experienced as a mammal. Light pollution was high enough to account for the given nature of how ravens had roughly the eyesight of diurnal birds too. The ad-hoc magical transfusion of magical energy into Ghur was patching over the worst of the conflicting impulses and instincts, but even still it was a little bit of a shock to the system.
Sure, I thought I was just doing something cool when I started this transformation, but now I was hopping around in confusion as a bird until I got the hang of having wings instead of hands.
One flap, two flaps, and then I was up and off into the air, leaving behind two very confused Wards in my wake, but once I'd gotten up I'd practically forgotten about their presence at all as I climbed higher and higher.
Instead of focusing on them, or the way my bones still ached in exhaustion even as a raven, I took solace in something else.
The sensation of the air going against my feathers as I flapped faster and faster, the distant burning of taut muscles in my chest and wings ignored as I reveled in the moment, in the sudden and immediate sense of freedom that soaring above Brockton Bay delivered. Above the apartment building, the districts, buffeted by air currents, I could see the city almost in it's entirety below me.
I'd been up this high before, usually on nighttime descents when riding in an airplane, but seeing it from a bird's eye view was a different monster. When you could see Brockton Bay like this, even with it's ugly elements like the boat graveyard or the trainyard, the city was nothing short of breathtaking. Maybe it wasn't anything special to Movers who could do this with some regularity, but for the first time, when you got to see all those glittering lights spread out below you? A laugh, joyful and strong, fell out of me and was translated into a caw as I glided through the air.
This sort of sight was the kind of thing you couldn't forget if you wanted.
For a few short moments, I could ignore the rest of the world, my worries, and my paranoid concerns about genocidal space whales. I could just… enjoy the feeling of flying, totally unmoored from the ground below. Eventually, I'd have to land and come back to earth, face the music, and deal with the way my body was threatening to mug me for what I'd done to it earlier.
But here and now, I was free. I'd been a Hero, saved someone's life, and done something unequivocally good. For the moment, that was enough for me.
Spoiler: Rolled Perks
Wolf Pack (100CP) - A Hunter needs his pets to be controlled. Why bother training a Sabretusk if it'll snap your neck in the night or run the first time a big beastie lands in front of you? You're a good, experienced hand with taming animals but it's once they're tamed that you show your worth. Once you've tamed a beast, it'll never disobey you. Even if one of those big ugly Chaos Dragons is staring down your poochie, it'll stand its ground beside you without a blink. If a witch or wizard tries to use beast magic to control one of your pets, they won't be entirely powerless but those magic users will find it far more difficult to influence any of your hounds, particularly when you are there with them. Magically Learned - Lore of Beasts(200CP) - Butchers all learn the magic of the Maw first and it is their primary focus throughout life. The Ogre mages are capable of learning how to harness the Lore of Beasts, Lore of Death or the Lore of Heavens. For each purchase of this perk you learn skilled proficiency in one of these Lores. The Lore of Beasts focuses on spells that empower or transform the user or his allies as well as commanding the beasts of the world.
Spoiler: Author's Notes
So, I've begun a nasty little habit that I'm going to correct after arc 1 is done and published, and I'm catching up with the deficit on the first interlude. I write these chapters, but before I publish them I go through with multiple editing passes and I'm like "Damn this needs more description, better put a paragraph or two here", and that throws me above word count when it comes to rolls. Thankfully, the Interlude is going to be a nice point where I can toss all those rolls and the natural buildup that this habit has begun to make.
It's not something that I'll be doing forever, just for the next few chapters. Honestly, I doubt anyone would have even noticed if I hadn't said anything, but for transparency's sake, I'd like to keep my audience informed on how I do things, and how the rolls work out.
I'm rolling every 1k words, which I was nervous about initially, but it turns out that there's a lot of garbage or things Odell can't take, so it works out.
Anyway, as usual, give me feedback, give me your complaints, and thank you for reading.
Chapter 4
For the past few days, I took it easy. Rescuing a guy from a burning building was an intense activity, even by Cape standards, but I was more than happy to kick back and focus on healing. That little break was enough for three things of particular note to happen.
The first was that I finally cracked how to use Healing Hands, tested with the assistance of a rat trapped near the group home. It was already in something of a singularly garbage condition when I found it, but Restoration was a helluva drug. That rodent found itself with a blessedly new lease on life, and in exchange for being my lab rat, I freed it from the trap.
I felt like we both came off feeling good from that exchange.
That was a load off my conscience, for more practical reasons. I wasn't as good as Panacea yet since I couldn't heal diseases or recurrent conditions, but keeping people from dying in front of me was a big benefit. As much as keeping Healing Hands to myself would be smart, actually healing people with it was morally better when I had the power to defend myself. Adding to my joy was figuring out Fast Healing alongside Healing Hands, even if I didn't consider the spell itself as big of a deal as the other Apprentice-tier spell.
Secondly, I learned what the joy of flying was. It didn't matter what time of the day it was, I couldn't keep myself from going back to flying as a raven if I had nothing else going on. That sensation of freedom, unparalleled height, of letting all the little worries and concerns I had for the future fall by the wayside… Yeah, I could see what the hype was about now.
Ghur spells were a strange breed. If it wasn't for the fact that I knew how to perform them, and the facsimile Ghur I was generating via my own magical energy production methods, I would have been far less concerned about taking the associated perk. Even now, there were definitely perks from Warhammer I wouldn't be touching with a ten-foot pole, at least if I had a choice in the matter. Anything to do with the Chaos gods was a pretty big one.
I wasn't sure if they were real in this segment of the multiverse, but even the mildest threat of letting any of them onto Earth-Bet, or the associated realities attached to it, was a possibility that I couldn't contend with. Ghur wasn't quite yet a weapon of last resort due to the rather brutal nature of many of its spells, but I'd have to be mindful of how it was used. Managing even the bigger spells among its number was beyond me to begin with, because burning that much energy at a time was just tough, even for me.
Still, it came with some benefits. There was a hefty array of transformative magics inside of the school, and some utility spells as well. I hadn't gotten around to talking to my wolf yet, but I planned on doing so soon. Provided it was even an eligible target for the spell, given how it worked.
The last happening was my Grimoire spinning for another grope into the blind eternities.
Spoiler: Dusty Old Notes(200CP)
Dusty Old Notes(200CP) - You've hit some sort of jackpot, Jumper. It's a collection of journals and diaries that belonged to a now-deceased magus without an heir. It will take some time to decode and translate, but it contains knowledge of how to use common Magecraft practices such as utilization of the Elements, and some practical substitutes for some Formalcraft items, letting you execute effective rituals with common materials you could find in a modern grocery Store.
On its own, not particularly impressive. But the books were such a solid grounding in magecraft that I completely and utterly lacked that I couldn't be very upset with their presence. They were everything I possibly could have hoped for when it came to explaining elements of nasuverse magecraft I couldn't extrapolate from the anime I'd seen.
Their old nature, and the fact that they were books, meant that they stayed relatively inviolate in the boys' home. Not that people would respect my privacy, but even if anyone went through them, I couldn't see any of the kids there being remotely interested in the descriptions of magic, and the process of slowly decoding and understanding the prose was obtuse for anyone who wasn't serious about learning magic.
I certainly was, though. Beyond the four basic types I'd discussed before, and elementalism, the thing I winnowed in on was the Geas spell, and Bounded Fields.
In my situation, with the extinction of humanity staring me down, I'd like to imagine I'm being pretty fair in assuming that the spell itself isn't entirely awful. It's something that'd bind not only me but whoever I used it on. Certainly, a less scrupulous person could use it for dumb things, but I'm a little more practical.
And there's no stronger loyalty than a binding enforced by magic to prevent people from breaking it. Other chumps could hem and haw over their concerns about whether or not their allies or business partners would betray them. There's a safety in knowing for sure that they're unable to.
A geas or two would be good, but the other thing of particular note was Bounded Fields. A geographical form of magecraft where one knits a boundary line of magical energy around a space to separate its insides from the outside. The general basis and premise of one was to work as a haven, a place for a Magus to hide away from the world outside and be relatively safe while they worked their magic. To that end, I was more than a little interested in experimenting and seeing if I could establish one of my own.
God knows there's enough abandoned infrastructure like warehouses, where the properly set up bounded field could be exceptionally useful for establishing the sort of hidden lab or base that I desperately wanted. It'd allow me to start taking some Domain perks in earnest from the Grimoire as well, without fear of people being too spooked by me creating buildings or constructions wholesale.
I didn't have a Warehouse yet, and I'm not sure if I could even get one. The mechanics behind that for the Grimoire were a little fuzzy, to say the least, given there weren't enough examples of it in the process like the Forge or the Menagerie. While some people might have fun leaping off into unexplored, virgin territory, I was very much a look before you leap type of person. Following a well-trodden path wasn't a problem for me.
Those two fields of magecraft were what I studied as the March 11th weekend came to a close, and the school week started in earnest. We were in the middle of March now, and while I had a few more weeks to make a splash and divert canon entirely off the rails, I still wasn't sure how to do that. Nothing I had could do anything against Lung, that was a certainty. Oni Lee I was more confident about, and I'd like to strangle Bakuda in the crib before she even had the opportunity to begin her bombing run.
If it wasn't for my need to keep up a remotely normal life, and lack of ability to do otherwise, I would have dropped out of Winslow and studied magic full-time. It wasn't as if I'd need a GED either when my ability to make money and a living just required a Number Man account and some gray market contacts.
Technically, there was a lot of oversight on using parahuman powers being used to make bank. In reality, if you had the right power, you could sidestep a lot of the laws. Uppercrust ran a largely non-criminal enterprise, and his status as a Villain was mostly political. While I didn't want to go that route if I could help it, I'd almost certainly be indulging in a Number Man card. For all of my plans I needed a nice, secure banking system, and for all intents and purposes?
Kurt Wynn wasn't even that bad as a member of Cauldron. Say what you want about the guy and his crimes, but he had style and usually represented a much more benignly negligent kind of villainy. His actions were mostly enabling villains to run around as a day job. If I had to let the dark side of finance run around long enough to crush the groups that were funded from it, I'd be able to live with myself.
This might not have been the most balanced approach or opinion to things. But I'm not perfect. I'm allowed to have favorites and people I didn't like, biases, and criticisms, while also still being completely wrong. If whoever dumped me on Earth-Bet wanted someone who made the perfect, objectively morally right decisions all the time, they wouldn't have sent a guy like me.
Bouncing around from idea to idea, practicing the speech for a Geas and the engravings for a bounded field, I barely even noticed when the Grimoire decided to spring a new perk on me out of the blue.
Spoiler: Enchanted Appliance(200CP)
Enchanted Appliance(Mage: The Awakening - 200CP) - Choose any one common appliance. Anything from a cell phone to a truck. You gain an enchanted variant of it. It will never need maintenance, refueling, or recharging. Furthermore, even if it looks outdated, it will outperform the most cutting edge mundane equivalent. In fact, it will probably outperform anything from our real world, if only just.
Briefly, I considered it, before dumping it by the wayside. It wasn't bad, just not what I was looking for. There were plenty of really solid Magitek perks out there, but this wasn't such a massive boon for what it was offering.
If I was in a fantasy setting, or a world without modern technology, sure, I'd consider it. As it stands now, it's just a waste of points when I wasn't even remotely in need of anything like it. Into the abyss it goes!
Besides my training, I'm kind of paranoid about all the events that have been coming up, but rushing into fight after fight, crisis to crisis wasn't productive for me. Unlike Taylor, I don't have the need or ability to continually escalate on a crusade, and I do have more options than I had before by the dint of having the Grimoire. Restoration was coming to me quicker now that I'd cracked that little hurdle from Novice to Apprentice, which meant that I could technically come out as an effective Cape healer now. If I was willing to deal with the immense amounts of attention that'd bring on me.
The PRT and Protectorate were probably willing to play the long game with me before this, but if I revealed that? Well, all bets were off, because it would be the most strategically unsound thing they could do to leave me running around in the Bay without supervision. That, and reducing their reliance on Panacea, would make Piggot probably scrutinize my actions more than ever before just to find an excuse to recruit me. And those worries are just for the actual lawful authorities.
This might not have been a very charitable view on the lawful institutions of Earth-Bet, but the original timeline was no stranger to the PRT and Protectorate bending rules when it suited them. Never forget, the entire system might have been full of Heroes and genuinely helping to fight parahuman crime… but only so Cauldron could keep society stable until they could go fight an alien god. If it'd suited them, they wouldn't have hesitated to create an entire society oriented towards villainy instead.
Bluntly, I also just didn't want to work for the government again. There's nothing wrong with doing so, but after four years of military service, I didn't think I could deal with the stifling bureaucracy again. Their support would be helpful in the beginning, when I was at my weakest… but the cost-to-benefit ratio would fall off rapidly the moment I got the right abilities.
While the Empire Eighty-Eight might not care beyond denying me as an asset to their rivals, the same could not be said about the other two gangs. The ABB talked a lot about being Asian and protecting Asian communities, but I'm pretty sure Lung genuinely would not give a shit about me being black if it meant he could recruit me as a pet healer. There were plenty of ways to keep an unwilling Cape in line, with Squealer of the Merchants being a prime example.
I'm… not sure how I'd fare in a Cape fight against most people, let alone my current targets for fighting crime. Skidmark probably just couldn't beat my range, even if he was a slippery little fuck. My Destruction spells weren't strong enough to deal with any of Squealer's vehicles on their own, though they might give them a run for their money, so flight was an option if things got incredibly dodgy. Mush was potentially a toss-up, depending on where I had to fight him and what random garbage was available that day. If he'd incorporated flammable or conductive materials into his body, well, I could just electrocute or immolate him.
What I'm saying is that I had options. A lot of options, and no one to talk to for advice..
Hmm.
That… made me stop my musings, in the middle of World Issues with Gladly, as I stopped doodling in the margins of my notebook and went still. I'd be so busy grinding, and running around, that I flat out… didn't have any friends. My social life was nonexistent.
Did Greg count as a friend to me? I'm not sure if I'd say so, if only because our conversations held absolutely no substance. They were nourishing that nerdy side of me, but nothing else. I had no one to bounce any ideas off, no one to share my troubles with, no one to confide in, no one to-
Hrm.
Gladly was off in the front of the class spouting about some bullshit no one cared about, because this was Winslow, and I'd be surprised if more than five of the kids in this classroom went to college after they'd graduated. I was outwardly the picture of calm, but trying very hard not to circle the drain and get spastic over my realization.
I didn't have any friends.
Rio might count, but he lived with me… even if we hung out a lot. I've been so busy studying, training, going out there, and doing Cape stuff, that I'd never actually spent any time with anyone. Did anything for me. Sure, I knew I had to keep things from going to shit. I knew that.
I… just didn't think about how lonely that had made me.
When I was in my world, in my old life, I was pretty godawful at maintaining social relationships. With no social media to speak of, no inclination or drive to call and text people, none of that inbuilt instinct that people had to reach out, I'd always struggled to connect. Once I had left high school, that was it for all of the friends I'd made there, and I'd never talked to a single soul from my alma mater again. The same with the friends I'd made in the military when I was done with my four years of service in the Air Force.
My family situation wasn't much better.
I loved my mom, and regularly called her when I could. The only thing I had in common with my brother was that we were related, and we pretty much only spoke to each other when our parents forced us to. With seven years between us, the gulf was big, and I just wasn't big brother material most of the time. Fulfilling someone's social needs was as foreign to me as learning magic, or figuring out how to fight. Considering what I had been up to, likely more foreign.
And my father was… potentially worse, even if we talked more. We didn't have anything in common, and while it wasn't antipathy, there was still a distance between us, and with our personalities differing the way they did I'm not sure it was something we could ever bridge. Just a considerable distance of vastly divergent life experiences that settled into a weird relationship where neither of us knew exactly where we stood with each other.
This is a bad habit of mine. To push all my feelings in a tight, small box, and let them sit for days, weeks, months, until they threaten to boil over at a random time and place not of my choosing. If I could fix it, I could, but I genuinely didn't have the faintest clue on how to get started with that.
So maybe it was time I made a connection. To make a real relationship of my own, and make that extra effort. I didn't want the same things that'd made me so lonely in my last life to happen in this one again. If that meant I had to trust someone, anyone, with my secrets… I'd take the plunge.
The Grimoire was fond of my introspection, with whatever pertinent revelations of my shitty interpersonal skills.
Spoiler: Weapon Magic(100CP)
Weapon Magic(Undertale - 100CP) - While a Monster can learn how to wield a weapon just like a human can, Monsters can take their mastery one step further, and apply their skill at arms to their magic! With a single purchase of Weapon Magic, you can make copies of the weapon you're currently wielding and use them as projectiles, or manipulate them remotely like you would the real weapon- But they'll be magical copies, and not physical objects, so while contact will hurt your foe like a magic attack would, it's not as if you actually slashed them with a sword.
Undertale wasn't a franchise I was the most familiar with beyond the basics of the game, and I'd never dived all that deep into the lore or mechanics behind it. What I did know was that Monster magical attacks didn't damage the body, so much as they attacked the spirit. Furthermore, they didn't just attack the spirit, but were powered by your spirit- If you weren't truly willing, truly determined to be lethal with it, it wasn't going to be. This was a fundamental boon for my Cape work, giving me an attack that scaled as I needed it, per-target, and that I didn't have to risk going overboard with it by accident.
The fact that it allowed me to create a bootleg Gate of Babylon did not factor into my thought patterns, and I'd sword-portal anyone who said otherwise.
I was also reminded of the fact that the Human SOUL and DETERMINATION were some of the most broken cheats in the entire setting. Humans were special by dint of having SOULs not attached entirely to their bodies, and the concentrations of DETERMINATION made their attacks pretty powerful even at a baseline. So that was another benefit of taking the perk.
Accepting the ability with an errant thought, my gaze wandered back down to my notes as I gave my earlier emotional ponderings some thought. I needed to confide in someone, talk to someone about this entire thing, or I was going to implode.
Thankfully, I had a pretty good candidate in mind who might be able to keep a secret.
"What's the deal?" Rio inquired, if only because the two of us weren't hanging out at the group home like usual. "You ain't usually tryin' to walk the block."
That in and of itself was a little odd for us, even as we were the weird ones out for doing so. All of the boys there only came by for eating, sleeping, and showering, at least if they could help it - showering being considered optional by most. From their perspective, I got their reticence for staying there myself, but I didn't intend to leave the place myself. Even if it was only to keep off the radar of social services at large, so they didn't look too closely into my situation. Now getting a GED, so I could spend less time at school? Different beast entirely.
Glancing over at Rio with my hands shoved in the pouch of my hoodie, I gave the boy a shrug. "This isn't for the other guys at the house to overhear, y'know? It's a big deal, a secret, and I can't trust them to keep it."
I felt as if I'd taken something of Rio's measure by this point. He was loyal enough in my eyes, loud, and perhaps not the most appreciative of academics… but he was also reliable, could keep his mouth shut, and had a relatively large dose of common sense, albeit compared to the other knuckleheads I was surrounded by. And if I told him a secret, chances were he'd bring it with him to the grave, unless he was forced to the wall.
Earth-Bet's populace was by and large normal, at least in terms of their behavioral patterns. It was the outliers, like parahumans, who had responses that a normal guy like me couldn't account for. Their trauma fundamentally altered who they were before their trigger events, which naturally made me a little leery about getting involved with them. Looking at it from another perspective, it was a little hypocritical of me to feel that way when I wasn't exactly the picture of mental health either.
Rio didn't have that, and for that I was thankful. He was a completely normal fourteen-year-old boy with the sort of shitty home life that'd gotten him dumped in the care of Ms. Flannerty. That he was the most trustworthy ally I could potentially have in Brockton Bay spoke more about the authorities and world I was in than anything else.
I didn't need more than an abandoned house for my purposes, and there were plenty of them around and cracked into. Walking into one, he followed me, if a little reticent in his body language.
"This isn't a weird gay thing, is it? Because man, I'm flattered, but-"
Goddammanit. I sputtered, reeling on him with a look of shock, wood creaking under my feet as we stepped into the house. "What?! No, it's-"
"Okay. That's a weight off my back. This isn't a gang thing, is it? Cuz I ain't interested in joining the Merchants."
God give me strength not to smack this kid.
"Jesus Christ, Rio! Do I look like I'm in the Merchants?" I wasn't gay either, but my brain cells could only be spared for so much at a given time. Arguing that point with him wasn't among them.
"I mean…" The kid gave me a look up and down, eyeing up my awful sense of fashion. "… Do you want my honest opinion?"
Why did I decide to trust him again? Oh, because I couldn't trust anyone else in this godforsaken city.
Closing my eyes and taking in a deep breath, I exhaled through my nostrils, imagining the stress leaving my body. Well, I tried to imagine it. Given how I still had that flushed, hot feeling on his face and neck, I don't think it left me.
"Rio."
"Odell?"
"I'm a Cape."
He gaped at me, eyes wide in likely some sort of profound realization. At least, that was what I'd thought that response meant, right up until he opened his mouth.
"… What? Dude, I already knew that."
"Whuh?" Completely flat-footed. It felt like the room was spinning, but that was probably just me trying to calm myself down and not break out into a panic attack. Was I that bad at maintaining a Cape identity? I mean, I knew my costume was crappy, but-
"Yeah, so whenever you came back from whatever the hell you were doing last week, you smelled like fire," Rio explained. "So I went through your shit because I was curious, and found like, the crappiest costume I'd ever seen. Then I neatly folded it up and put it back."
Entirely shameless words, though since he didn't take anything, I had to presume that he was at least respectable enough for that. Regardless, I tried to keep my mind from going to the worst possible options. "And you didn't tell anyone?"
"Do I look like a fuckin' narc, Odell?" He asked, almost looking personally offended by the implication. "I'm the only guy you hang out with at home, so no one else would even notice, either."
Shaking my head in the negative, an amused and exasperated snort escaped my nose at his reaction. "Good. It's not like the Empire Eighty-Eight or ABB were gonna run to try and recruit me, but the Merchants might."
"Nah, I'm not tryin' to bring that heat on me. Besides, knowin' your goody-two-shoes lookin' ass, you're probably a Hero, right?" Rio guessed, and correctly before he continued.
"All those big-time Heroes at the Protectorate, the Wards, hell, even New Wave… they don't do nothin'. Sure, they do their patrols, they do the meet n' greets at the Boardwalk, but what does that shit change? What's the last Villain they've put away outside of this goddamn city, or thrown in the Birdcage?"
… I genuinely couldn't remember. The Chorus Gang? They barely were a footnote in the lore, compared to the goddamn institutions that were in Brockton now. They'd managed to capture some Villains in the story, but they were always broken out sooner rather than later. Lung was only captured because of the Undersiders, Kaiser got killed by Leviathan which fractured the Empire Eighty-Eight, and most of the other existing criminal elements got murdered or brutalized by the Slaughterhouse Nine.
When you looked at the history of the city, it was a long and storied history of failures, both systemic and institutional. A lot of it was because of Coil and Cauldron, sure, but just as much of it was because Piggot was the type of person who absolutely should have never been put in a position of power over parahumans. Her dislike of them was justified, but even still. That, and also beyond a few standouts in the Protectorate, a lot of them were Heroes for the paycheck, rather than because they were particularly attached to the city in question.
In the middle of all this, the Grimoire spat out a new perk, forcing me to divide my attention.
Spoiler: Evolution(600CP)
Evolution (Sonny - 600CP) - To start, you're not exactly normal. You're stronger than most zombies would be by default, though only about twice over for now, and have the potential to get far stronger. In fact, you can guide your body to grow in different places as long as you train, such as building speed by weightlifting. This is meant to improve what's already there, so no growing extra arms. But as long as it's already there, be it poison gland or tail, it's free game. Also, to help you along with this, your body improves 5 times as fast as it did before. In addition, pick one of three sub-trees to obtain.
-The Biological tree grants you great strength and speed, enough to outpace a car on the freeway and then throw that same car like a rock. You also have the ability to manipulate chemicals within yourself, though this limits itself to the body's natural chemicals and a few forms of poison and acid. With time, you could even shoot out brief streams of high-powered acid or leverage your adrenaline to keep you fighting for far longer than you could naturally.
-The Hydraulic tree increases your Focus and physical stamina to great heights, allowing one to bombard an enemy with powerful spells or run for hours. You also gain the ability to manipulate water from inside your body. This can eventually allow you to restore your stamina and manipulate ice through reducing the temperature of water, or increase your body temperature at the cost of Focus and stamina to massively improve your strength.
-The Psychological tree bestows powerful Instinct and durability, allowing you to empower a simple mana blast to blow up a garage, and get run over by a tank with some broken ribs at worst. In addition, you are granted control over your own bio-electricity and the element of shadow. Bio-electricity is as it sounds, but shadow in this universe is more on par with psychic attacks than a manipulation of a lack of light.
Good lord.
If I took this, everything the Grimoire had built up so far would be taken. In recompense, I would get a not-insignificant boost in my capabilities across the board. I'd have a Brute rating that wouldn't rely on my magic to exist, and the low-level growth abilities would ensure that provided I kept working at it. It was a power fundamentally closer to Crawler or Dauntless in truth, requiring me only to keep investing the time and resources to make it happen.
My body improving five times as fast was such a massive cheat that I almost spat blood like some arrogant young master being faced with the protagonist in a xianxia novel. If it was just the strength and the improvement, I might have strongly considered it to be taken on those merits alone. But the additional sub-trees to choose from were just icing on the cake.
I played Sonny back in the day, so I had a rough idea of what some of them did, even if I wasn't so hot on the exact abilities. Biological was nice, and being an actual mid-level Brute would have made me feel a bit more secure in myself. But it didn't have the highest growth potential beyond that, nor did it help me become a better mage. So it was a toss-up between Hydraulic and Psychological when I accepted the perk.
Both had their benefits, but Hydraulic was what was best for me in the end. I needed a middle path, something to grant me the stamina to do all of this stuff, and I'd been coming around to the potential of ice as an elemental variety of attack. Focus was the Sonny equivalent of MP, so having more of that was just functionally a good idea all around. Besides, I was a hydraulic technician when I was in the USAF, so this felt like it spoke to me on a fundamental level.
And I did feel the changes beginning to settle in as I stood there, and Rio talked.
My muscles didn't feel bigger, even though I'd been jogging every other day, and been working hard on my fitness. If anything it was more like they were denser, and the strength was hard to quantify without something to compare it to. The promise of having a six-pack in a remarkably short amount of time was something I was very excited to test out over the next month or so.
"… you're godawful with people, but you want to help," Rio continued, while I'd been briefly dazed. "I've been let down by a lot of people in my life over the years." he stated, harshly, and in no uncertain terms. "But you ain't one of em'. You're a good person, even if you can be a bit of a scaredy cat."
There was so much whiplash going on, that I wasn't sure entirely what to do. I couldn't blame the Grimoire for setting me off kilter because it wasn't the Grimoire's fault for giving me exactly what I had wanted. Rio had sort of run roughshod over this conversation, but not in a bad way. Just a wholly unexpected one.
"I…" My mouth opened and closed a few times, as the right words floundered and left me, as my mind raced for the best thing to say.
Sure, I've had my mother and my father profess faith in me, but throughout my entire life, I'm not sure if anyone else has ever done the same. Rio and I hadn't known each other for very long, so maybe it was just a function of guy friendships that his trust and faith had become so solidified in such a short amount of time. You could meet and become friends with someone over a month, and that turned into a lifelong relationship, in ways that boggled me even now.
From Rio's perspective, when you've been let down by the system, it's easy to get an appreciation for someone legit in their desire to help. You could spot fakes easily, and sort the chaff from the genuine articles. Helping him with his homework, cracking jokes, watching his back and making sure no one stole his stuff…
That sort of thing was second nature to me to just hand out when I liked someone. I didn't think twice about being generous, being kind, or putting someone's needs or wants in front of my own in those cases. It'd never occurred to me what that sort of thing looked like from the outside in because to me that was just the thing to do when you wanted to be friends. If you weren't actively trying to give more than you got, what was the point?
"That… means a lot to me, Rio." I swallowed, throat tight with emotion. "I didn't know what I was doing when I started this when I started to be Folklord, but… it's good to see that at least one person believes in me."
"… Who?" I blinked at his reaction.
"Me, Folklord? My Hero name?"
"Oh," There was a little sheepish look that came over his face and a flush of color on his tanned features. "I thought you were someone, ah, maybe more established. Like Browbeat or something. That's you? Folklord?"
I'm going to strangle this kid.
"Yeah, that's me," I nodded, getting out a response through grit teeth.
"Cool, cool. I think I read a PHO thread about you yesterday. Saved some guy from a fire or something?"
"Yep." It took some real effort for me not to puff out my chest, and judging by the look on his face, I'm pretty sure I failed in my effort to keep my cool at being recognized hidden.
Rio continued, not even knowing how much I was going to be preening and then fretting over what the internet discourse about me was later. "A lot of people were wondering what your powers were. I was thinking of some kind of energy manipulation Breaker state, cuz' that'd explain the Brute and Blaster stuff you were supposedly doing."
"It's a little more complicated than that," I admitted. "I'm a Trump, but closer to Dauntless than anything else. Fundamentally, I've got an exotic energy source inside of myself that I can manipulate, but it also builds up to give me more powers. Permanent ones."
"What?" Rio's brow furrowed, obvious disbelief in his eyes. "That's bullshit. I'm callin' bullshit on that."
That moment I earned my Thinker rating with the most smug smirk I could manifest, as I created a small flame in my hand, then manifested a hovering ball of frost, followed by electricity, and finished it up with summoning my familiar through Conjuration. The ghostly wolf that appeared was confused to be brought forth given there wasn't any combat or training going on, looking around and then settling on watching Rio with a passingly interested look.
For Rio's part, he demonstrated a profound lack of care as he went up and began to immediately win over my traitorous familiar with ear rubs and chin scratches. The wolf looked over at me and I could have sworn the bastard shrugged in a real 'What can you do' motion with its shoulders.
"Did you name this excellent boy yet? No, I can see it on your smug goddamn face, you didn't." Rio sighed, looking over at me with a disappointed furrow of his brow. "I'm taking your naming privileges away. You're awful at it."
With his hands still settled on the wolf's cheeks, he looked down into its eyes and smiled wide. "Your name is now Cujo. How do you like that, Cujo? You're a vicious little projection, aren'tcha?"
Those words were entirely at odds with how much Cujo's leg was thumping in delight on the concrete ground. Well, at least he finally got a name, since I'd been waffling on that front.
Next, I continued with conjuring a bound dagger, and then manifesting a collection of the blades in the air via weapon magic, hovering and moving in all sorts of directions. Rio's face following that display transitioned from his earlier dog-petting delight to an inscrutable expression while he watched this, but I couldn't help but cackle once the next words came out of his mouth.
"That's the most broken bullshit I've ever seen." Arms crossed in front of his chest, I could swear I saw a vein throbbing on his forehead. "I don't even think that's how Trumps are supposed to work. Having that many different abilities, even if they're weak…"
"Did I mention I can heal with no downside, and I just got a Brute power while we were talking?"
The disgusted noise that came out of his mouth would keep me warm long after the memory of this conversation faded away.
"So why the hell are you still in the group home, bro?! Wouldn't the Wards scoop you up like that?" He asked, snapping his fingers to punctuate.
That's right when the Grimoire chipped in with something new.
Spoiler: Last Stop Shop(600CP)
Last Stop Shop(Konosuba - 600CP) - Not every Boss of the demon army is an active general. Indeed, it even suits the Demon King better that some of them stay isolated, safe and unassuming to the adventurers that seek to take them out. You've been given a shop to run instead of your normal duties, a shop that reflects the disconnect your superiors have with the normal world. See, your shop is set in the starting town of this world where many adventurers first appear and yet it is filled to the brim with end game equipment. While the truly powerful and unique artifacts won't be found for sale here, stuff fit for legendary heroes or the greatest warriors in the world is still commonplace. A level 100 warrior or wizard who visited your store would find it more than adequate… even if none of the low level heroes around you can afford or even use your wares. You'd never sink so low as to take advantage of all this powerful, rare equipment for yourself though….would you? The shop will continue to appear in future worlds, carrying high level equipment for each setting in its stock.
I couldn't even accept it if I wanted to, so the connection broke off, leaving me still smirking at Rio.
"Being in the Wards isn't the big boost you'd think it is. I'd have rules, regulations, PR considerations, stuff like that," I pointed out. "Beyond the fact that my powers are going to grow so big, when I really come into my own, I won't need them. Especially when I start getting gear or abilities that let me grant powers."
That got a more considering hum from the boy. "Not sure if I totally agree with you on the Wards bit, but… are you going to hook a dude up with one of these powers, or…?"
"Who else would I want to watch my back?" I asked, grinning wide. "Besides, some of the stuff I can get is good. Really, really good. Extradimensional spaces, a few tinker specialties, some crazy vehicles, a dragon…"
"A dragon…?"
"Don't worry about it. Just know that'll be nuts. I also wanted to have someone who can tell me if I'm being a crazy person, if my powers alter the way I think."
That was a big concern of mine since quite a few of the Grimoire perks could change you in that regard. I didn't have anything that did that yet, but it was only a matter of time until I did, or potentially began to move beyond being able to relate with normal people. Having people around me to ground me was paramount to not becoming the worst kind of monster or tyrant when that happened.
"Okay, I can wrap my head around that. I'm like, what, the guy in the chair until you get something that'll let me go in the field and keep up with your chubby ass?" Rio poked.
"I'm losing weight! I even got a power to help me get fit!"
"The point stands until you drop those pounds, tubby."
He was saying this to get under my skin. I knew it, he knew it, we both knew it, and yet it burned me enough, all the same, to let it work. Though I knew it came from a place of friendship, rather than actual malice.
"But yeah, I got the gist," Rio grinned. "I'm the normal guy in all this, to keep you from being super weird or anything, and giving you some solid advice."
Another nod from me at that generally concise way of looking at it. "Pretty much. I'm sort of spinning my wheels right now since I'm not sure what to do. I got some precognitive stuff and I'm generally aware of some bad things that'll be happening in the city, but I'm not sure what to handle first."
"Anything that's happening this month?"
"No." The Travelers don't get hired by Coil till the middle of April, around the same time as the bank robbery and Dinah's abduction, if my memory of the timeline was right. "But I would like to recruit some of the independent Heroes, Rogues, and less awful Villains."
"Then you should probably keep practicing and keep on hitting the gangs to establish a rep. Obviously, don't fuck with the Empire too much, cuz' they move in groups usually." That was what I came to, so I felt a little vindicated in that. "But you can probably screw around with the ABB."
Not what I expected to hear, so I pounced on it, wanting an answer. "Why the ABB? They have Lung and Oni Lee!"
"Yeah, Oni Lee is pretty dangerous," he agreed. "But he's also not a Brute. You shoot lightning and fire, and you only need to clip him once badly to make him retreat. And everyone knows that Lung doesn't do shit, unless he's really angry."
… None of those were bad points, not at all. There was probably a little more nuance with the Lung bit, but I could see it. The point made me pinch my lips, expression morphing into something more pensive. "And the Merchants?"
Rio scoffed. "Can't you turn into a bird or something? That was on one of the P.H.O. posts when someone captured it on video."
"Yeah, a raven," I confirmed.
"Then there's absolutely no goddamn reason any of them should catch up to you if things get hot. Squealer's the only Tinker in town, but her vehicles aren't known for being invincible. Just tough. If your bullshit power works the way you say it does, you'll get something to deal with her eventually. Otherwise, none of them are all that threatening."
That was a really good point. Most Tinkertech by itself wasn't exactly famous for being very sturdy. It was known for the opposite- It couldn't last a week or two of normal use without breaking down, which is why Tinkers were only useful to any group that directly worked with them, and hadn't dominated the market. One good, solid hit with Sparks somewhere sensitive may short-circuit or break it, even with the robustness of her vehicle designs.
It was kind of mollifying to see that he'd come up with all of this so swiftly, all but making it seem like the choice to trust him had been the right move. "And if you somehow lose to Mush or Skidmark, we can't be friends anymore."
"That's fair." That's the kind of stain on your reputation that you couldn't remove. It's one thing to get bodied by Hookwolf, the guy was an institution inside of the Empire Eighty-Eight. Losing to the Merchants just made you look like a complete and utter joke.
Clicking my tongue, I was feeling a lot more validated about what my choice in the future would be. "Then I'll try to go after the Merchants. See if I can get into one of their stash houses."
"Scout out their turf as a raven. I'd be amazed if any of them even noticed in the dead of night."
… Damn, why didn't I think of that?
Ravens were pretty hard to see in the middle of the night, and for now, no one was going to be presuming that any passing bird was actually a Cape scouting them out to knock their teeth in later and burn their drugs. I had a lot of really practical, straightforward life experience, but my actual ability to combine my powers with practice was on the lacking side.
It was probably just a function of me not growing up here, and not having the same baselines or mindset for combining things. I liked having more power because it shored up my relative inability to be as creative as I should be, as opposed to Rio. He was clever, and sharp enough that I could see the kid going far as a parahuman researcher one day because he had the mindset to ask questions about powersets that other people didn't.
Or at least ask more questions than I did. Same difference. Another Grimoire charge spun by, latching onto an ability I'd probably take.
Spoiler: Pyrokinesis 1(100CP)
Psychic Abilities - Pyrokinesis (Matches)(World of Darkness: Psychics - 100CP) - In the World of Darkness, psychic abilities and mythic sorcery are, at first glance, completely different. However, both manipulate the same powers, albeit in very different ways, and are both considered forms of linear magic. While a sorcerer utilizes numerous tools and ceremonies to harness supernatural powers, a psychic makes do with lots, and lots, of willpower. Furthermore, the majority of psychic powers are innate, and can be improved, but not gained, without outside interference, in stark contrast to sorcery.
The psionic ability to produce and manipulate heat and fire.
[1] Matches - a single thing within physical reach burst into flames as though an actual match had been used upon it.
This wasn't too crazy, but it was cheap, and the ability to set something on fire with a very small flame could be nice as a distraction. Either way, I felt the new ability settle into the back of my mind, happy with something poured more by pure will than magical reservoirs.
"You probably should make a P.H.O. handle too, maybe post a bit there about yourself, just to get your side of the story out there." Another good point.
"I think that's just about everything I wanted to tackle if I'm being honest," I admitted. "Telling the truth to you was… big, but it was good to see that you know what you're talking about."
"Of course I do," Rio agreed, hands on his hips and nodding as if he was dispensing great wisdom.
There was one other thing I needed to bounce off someone, too. "Once I get the ability to empower people, I was thinking of creating my independent team in the Bay as well."
"Smart. Won't hold up if people ain't able to make that into a full-time thing, though. Money makes the world go round." Hell, even New Wave had to have jobs and donations to supplement their lifestyles. Though if they'd even remotely monetized Panacea's powers in any way whatsoever except for good local PR, those issues would have been solved in an instant. Thus they were languishing in their current state.
… But I'd actually looked a bit into this in my old life as a bit of corporate trivia. "Not if we buy a shelf corporation."
That made Rio stare at me blankly, as he tilted his head slightly to the side in confusion. "… A shelf corporation…?
It was now the moment to wow him with a bunch of corporate chicanery. God bless America and its niche laws. "A company that hasn't had any activity," I explained. "It's made, and then put up 'on the shelf'."
"Why?"
"So people don't have to go through the process of starting a company, and all the procedures you need for it." A little bit of a loophole, as far as we were concerned. "If we find the right lawyer, or a trustworthy adult, and back the play with some finance I can probably whip up in like, a month of healing."
Some people might prefer to pay for healing in all honesty. There were a lot of folks in the world that didn't trust free things, but attaching a price tag to it was another situation entirely. Also, how many wealthy and loaded people were never going to get on Panacea's list of patients, but just wanted some quick and dirty healing on non-life threatening injuries or diseases? Once I figured out Cure Disease, that'd make my services even more marketable as soon as I - or more importantly, my powers - got a clean bill of health from the PRT.
I took in a breath before I continued my rambling. "So from there, we could use that as a launchpad for a corporate Hero team. We'd be 'beholden' to a corporation we'd own, while also proving a totally legit avenue to dole out cash to anyone on the roster."
A few of Villains in Brockton Bay, with the right rebranding, could certainly be turned to the side of the angels when offered fat stacks of cash. Most of the Undersiders would probably be willing to hear it out, seeing as it was significantly less dangerous than being Villains, and probably more profitable. The only reason I even knew any of this corporate chicanery was a business class in high school, and some research I did when I was looking into making an indie game dev company when I graduated college.
Never used it in my old life, but I'm happy to see it had a use here!
Rio seemed… perhaps a little perplexed. He was following the general outline, but I might have lost him on the complexities of my plan. "I… think that sounds plausible? I'll have to google and maybe ask on P.H.O. to have someone spot-check that."
That got a smile out of me, though. To my understanding the concept was sound, and it'd kill multiple birds with one stone. Making a new independent Hero team in Brockton Bay, providing me a platform to help stabilize the economy through the corporation, and a way to legally make money.
Rio sucked in a little breath, rolling his neck as he worked out whatever kinks had built up. "Now let's get back to the house. I'm starvin', and Flannery's making roast beef tonight."
Shit, we'd best get back soon then, or we would not get any. The two of us ambled off out of the abandoned home where our discussion had taken place, walking side by side. For me, it was a release of a lot of stress, and the realization that I was a better judge of character than I'd thought. It was nice to be able to share some of these plans with people, and get feedback, on ideas I'd never even considered.
Rio was my first recruit and confidante, but ideally, he wouldn't be the last. Thankfully, I had some ideas of people to try and recruit. If I could deal with Coil, Chariot should be empowered by this point and a perfectly fine Tinker to work with. Browbeat hadn't been inducted into the Wards yet, and with the right abilities from the Grimoire, some of his mental health issues could be dealt with as an incentive for recruitment. Even if that felt a little mercenary to me, it was a concept I put into the periphery of my thoughts.
Taylor was… a very complex issue to handle with all sorts of delicacy, but she generally wanted to do right by the city. I could work with that.
The fact that a weight I hadn't even been aware of had been lifted off of me in the process of opening up had helped. It was like I wasn't going it alone now.
Which was of course when Rio had to open his mouth.
"It's OK if you're gay, by the way, I don't mind. Just don't tell Kaiser."
Spoiler: Rolled Perks
Dusty Old Notes(200CP) - You've hit some sort of jackpot, Jumper. It's a collection of journals and diaries that belonged to a now-deceased magus without an heir. It will take some time to decode and translate, but it contains knowledge of how to use common Magecraft practices such as utilization of the Elements, and some practical substitutes for some Formalcraft items, letting you execute effective rituals with common materials you could find in a modern grocery Store.
Weapon Magic(100CP) - While a Monster can learn how to wield a weapon just like a human can, Monsters can take their mastery one step further, and apply their skill at arms to their magic! With a single purchase of Weapon Magic, you can make copies of the weapon you're currently wielding and use them as projectiles, or manipulate them remotely like you would the real weapon- But they'll be magical copies, and not physical objects, so while contact will hurt your foe like a magic attack would, it's not as if you actually slashed them with a sword.
Psychic Abilities - Pyrokinesis (Matches)(100CP) - In the World of Darkness, psychic abilities and mythic sorcery are, at first glance, completely different. However, both manipulate the same powers, albeit in very different ways, and are both considered forms of linear magic. While a sorcerer utilizes numerous tools and ceremonies to harness supernatural powers, a psychic makes do with lots, and lots, of willpower. Furthermore, the majority of psychic powers are innate, and can be improved, but not gained, without outside interference, in stark contrast to sorcery.
The psionic ability to produce and manipulate heat and fire.
[1] Matches - a single thing within physical reach burst into flames as though an actual match had been used upon it.
Evolution (Sonny - 600CP) - To start, you're not exactly normal. You're stronger than most zombies would be by default, though only about twice over for now, and have the potential to get far stronger. In fact, you can guide your body to grow in different places as long as you train, such as building speed by weightlifting. This is meant to improve what's already there, so no growing extra arms. But as long as it's already there, be it poison gland or tail, it's free game. Also, to help you along with this, your body improves 5 times as fast as it did before. In addition, pick one of three sub-trees to obtain.
-The Biological tree grants you great strength and speed, enough to outpace a car on the freeway and then throw that same car like a rock. You also have the ability to manipulate chemicals within yourself, though this limits itself to the body's natural chemicals and a few forms of poison and acid. With time, you could even shoot out brief streams of high-powered acid or leverage your adrenaline to keep you fighting for far longer than you could naturally.
-The Hydraulic tree increases your Focus and physical stamina to great heights, allowing one to bombard an enemy with powerful spells or run for hours. You also gain the ability to manipulate water from inside your body. This can eventually allow you to restore your stamina and manipulate ice through reducing the temperature of water, or increase your body temperature at the cost of Focus and stamina to massively improve your strength.
-The Psychological tree bestows powerful Instinct and durability, allowing you to empower a simple mana blast to blow up a garage, and get run over by a tank with some broken ribs at worst. In addition, you are granted control over your own bio-electricity and the element of shadow. Bio-electricity is as it sounds, but shadow in this universe is more on par with psychic attacks than a manipulation of a lack of light.
Spoiler: Author's Notes
One more chapter from the backlog down. I'm happy with this chapter, as it was a VERY good chapter for perks. As always, comment, give me feedback, stuff like that. I also can't take credit for the shelf corporation concept, because it came from Logos01 from Sufficient Velocity. I didn't even know those were a thing. Anyway, I felt like that justifies my interest in reading whatever you lot post alone, for adding what was a really strong narrative beat when it came to corporate heroism, which you rarely see in Worm at all.
Chapter 5
Movies and television had spoiled me in regards to how long stakeouts actually took, and how extensively law enforcement had to investigate the individuals they were legally stalking. Every night since I'd revealed my status as a Cape to Rio, I'd gone out to Merchant territory, flying high or perched on rooftops as a raven. Studying them, getting a good handle on their social dynamics, and who the movers and shakers were.
Eventually, the fact that I could transform into a bird would probably get around the Brockton Bay community, and would spoil that disguise for me… until I just transformed into a rat, or something else small. For now, I felt like the best kind of voyeur as I spent my idle hours of the night listening in on conversations and making an increasingly detailed series of notes on who went where.
This wasn't a full-length investigation, but just enough to get me the info I needed. Houses that were confirmed to have criminal activity based out of them just from talks and slang bandied about, or that I could form a strong suspicion about. A few were crossed from the list, but eventually, I had three addresses selected that I had good feelings about for my plans.
Doing this profiling helped me come to terms with some facts about the Merchants as well. How the hell were these bozos still in business?
It was the worst kind of barely restrained, aimed chaos, with the street-level dealers rarely being in situations that were much better than those that bought products from them. Inherently they were the byproduct of economic depressions and the sort of environments they created, a group with few aspirations to speak of. Their Capes at the top had few ambitions to speak of, and until the way Leviathan had gutted the local Cape community later in the year, they didn't act on the ones they had.
Using their powers to make risky business less dangerous seemed to be the only tying thread between them, besides hedonism and the admittedly small profits I saw them making. Compared to the Empire being the backend operation of a sizable pharmaceutical corporation that also served as a money laundering scheme? Or the way the ABB had become unfortunately adept at human trafficking and prostitution, importing and exporting presumably elsewhere in the world?
No, the Merchants were not a particularly profitable operation at this point in the timeline.
That being said, the money they did make was guarded. Not as rigorously as I imagined other syndicates guarded their own, but my beady raven eyes didn't manage to miss a thing at the end of the day. Their complete lack of operational security was to be bemoaned, but in the end was beneficial to me.
It allowed me to narrow down three different potential locations for stash houses, or at the very least, labs. Honestly, I was more concerned about the drug labs, because meth houses were pretty famous for going up in smoke. That meant I'd have to refrain from my usual tricks of setting things on fire or electrocuting people. Mostly.
While I hadn't been too surprised to see that Rio's idea of scouting as a raven had been effective, it still justified in my mind the decision to share with him. We hadn't known each other for very long in the grand scheme of things, but I had the general shape that he wasn't going to rat me out to anyone. Until something changed, he had some trust from me.
All the while this was merely one-half of the preparations I'd made over the next three days, as March 19th rolled around.
Evolution was a pretty game-changing perk for me. It gave me a boost to my strength, although it only doubled the existing amount, and made me something of a permanent Brute 0, maybe 1. That rating only had the promise to naturally grow the more I worked out though, which brought a new feverishness to my training, helped along by a bemused Rio. Running was a mainstay to my routines in the morning, but the seemingly endless font of stamina presented to me allowed for additional exercises later in the day.
Each day was something new, but given I was able to do five equivalent days' worth of exercises in one session? My body was beginning to change, and when I looked at myself without a shirt on, it was easy to tell. That body fat I'd started with when I slotted into Odell's body had long since started to completely fade away, bit by bit. I wasn't at an average weight yet, but people looking at me would think 'bulky' before they thought 'fat'.
Looking at the magical benefits was just as nice. Focus was essentially just a neat, even flow of magical energy, which was worth the entirety of the perk on its own. I wasn't going to be calling down massive cataclysms of magic like some of the Ghur spells in my library, but not needing to be so paranoid about my varying amounts of energy was a massive relief. The hydrokinesis parts of the perk were… interesting.
Even if it made me suspicious that my copy of the Grimoire had something of a hydrokinesis obsession, given the other perks I'd been offered so far.
First among them was the fact that manipulating the water inside of my body, or turning magical energy into water, was easier. When I tried to connect that ability to Clever Craft's Frostbite spell, my control over it seamlessly increased. If anything, I suspect that a lot of the Destruction spells that relied on ice would be a lot easier for me to learn, coming to me more naturally just as a byproduct of my increased inclination towards the element of water.
A bit of a macabre trick I learned about was dehydrating a cockroach to take its moisture for myself. A bit of a grim ability, but it had its merits on why it'd be important to use it if I was ever pressed against the wall. So as Saturday came around I had a solidly expanded list of capabilities, and the Grimoire seemed intent on handing me something before I went out into the fray.
Spoiler: Monster Maker(Neolife - 600CP) [i
Monster Maker(600CP) - Monsters are creatures that are not given birth to through evolution like normal animals but are rather birthed by mana. Though after that, they can reproduce normally. The birth of a monster has two stages: first is the catalyst, where elemental mana comes together in certain quantities and patterns, which then triggers stage two, the gathering and formation of other mana types to create the body, such as fur, bone, or blood mana. And now, you know three methods of causing the same process yourself.
The first is simply drawing together the mana manually, whether that is through a Druid's affinities or a Mage's spells. The second is to draw runic spell formation circles to gather the mana. This can be used in various ways, such as simply making ones to gather and store the mana types you want and then create a number of monsters at a trigger, or to just spawn them endlessly the moment enough mana is gathered to level up at a fast pace.
The third is Summoning Magic, which you are decently good at. It works through the same principles as the first two methods to create monsters, but as teleportation magic is part of it, you can also use it to do things such as actually summoning monsters or other beings and things within a certain radius matching your specifications to you, teleporting yourself, or creating contracts (forced or willing) to easily summon creatures or their spirits, in case you killed them and placed a mark on their body before they died. Another thing to mention would be that in this world, Dungeons are also a kind of monster, which you would of course also be capable of creating.
Now, those are some useful skills, but the one thing separating you from others capable of doing the same is your talent for creating and designing an entirely new life, whether that is monsters or animals. With careful study, you can find the right mana combinations for nigh-anything you might want to create, whether that is a hermaphroditic moose reproducing with itself throughout all of time and space or simply a fluffy fox girl. As a last bonus, anything you create will be loyal to you. It would be pathetic to die to the improved version of the Lunar Titan you made, right?/i]
The Grimoire couldn't even hold onto something that big though, not with its current charge. I was of two minds about the loss of the perk. My current strength was not enough to keep people from giving me the side eye once they found out I could create biotinkered life that could replicate, so removing the temptation for me to even do so was for the best. Even if I sort of did want to create a fox girl.
My inner weaboo would have to remain unsatiated.
Before I headed out, I left the dusty old notes of the dead magus with Rio. He was skeptical of the idea that anything my power created would work with him, but at the very least promised to start looking at the journal entries and descriptions of Formalcraft. If memory served, it used the mana of the world rather than an iota of the Prana inside of someone's body. Vastly more time-consuming than other forms of magecraft, but extremely useful as a tool for those without any magic circuits.
I wanted to look into grafting magic circuits to people without killing them, but that was a slippery road to go down. It's one thing to hand someone a magical item, but another to change their very body, and introduce a strange and unusual brand of magic to the world for countless generations after. My actions could have long-lasting repercussions for Earth-Bet, even if I wholly planned on being immortal and living long enough to see them through.
The first house was roughly two stories tall, with a porch that's seen better days. With a wooden front that was slowly rotting away with the years, it was the picture-perfect representation of the sort of urban decay omnipresent in this part of Brockton Bay. Windows that were scuffed, or boarded over in places, and generally the sort of locale that immediately screamed that its inhabitants wouldn't be here if there was any other sensible option.
I'd just seen two of the drug dealers I'd been tracking up to this point and followed them on their route back to the given building I'd earmarked before. If anything, that solidified to me that it was a site worth raiding, and I observed it a bit longer, trying to make an honest guess of how many people were inside.
Five? Maybe six, total? I didn't think I was going to be running into any higher than that, and if I did? I'd be ready.
My options weren't as limited in terms of combat abilities as I used to be, which was a pretty big reason why I wasn't as nervous. I knew I'd been picky about some of the perks and abilities I chose, but it was nice to see that everything was starting to come together in a cohesive whole. Evolution gave me the juice to cast around low-level spells all day with ease, a far cry from when I had to be significantly more mindful of rationing my various pools of magical energy. It didn't hand me something new, so much as it buoyed the existing ones, and made them a little more efficient.
With an errant moment of concentration, I felt Oakflesh solidify over my body. Then I moved on focusing on the Ghur spell, The Boar's Hide, feeling that sensation of thickening and solidity settle on myself once again. When you could layer defensive spells, why even take the risk and not do it?
For a brief moment, I was tempted to go for Claws of Fury, but that was probably a bridge too far. It didn't stop me from bringing forth Cujo though, on my heels as I walked towards the front door of the stash house in front of me. Each step brought me closer, getting that feeling of roaring blood in my ears, as the world around me began to fade away.
Standing in front of the door, I knew there wasn't any going back, not if I was going to march onward to my goals. A more well-balanced person would have felt nervous, instead of this anxious, eager itch on the back of my hands. It was something I'd been somewhat aware of back in my old life but had never actually gotten to act on. At least, not with the right kind of outlet that a world like Earth-Bet provided.
I think I might like fighting after all.
No, that's not quite right. Deep down, I knew enough about myself to confirm that I was a bit of a coward. But there was something freeing about just letting go of the fear, the indecision, the worries of the day-to-day doldrums and losing yourself in a flurry of violence… To be clear, I'm not a psycho or anything, but it was times like this when I could see the appeal of being a battle junkie. Like the worst behavior of people, there were times and places when those uncomfortable vices could be put to good use.
That felt a little hypocritical of me when I liked to pontificate and monologue internally about higher standards for heroes. Oh well. Nobody's perfect.
Using my left foot to brace myself on the ground, my right came up, before slamming on the space just below the doorknob and lock, my heightened strength sending the crappy wooden door swinging inwards from my kick. It was loud, there was no way they wouldn't hear it, and I knew that the moment I did it.
This was why I couldn't help but be glad the scarf on my face kept the idiotic grin on my face out of view. Yeah, here was me and my complicated relationship with violence coming to the fore.
One unfortunate man had the misfortune of being directly in my sight, halfway out of what had to be the kitchen, a fruit pop in his hands. His eyes were wide in confusion and shock, which only turned more alarmed with shrill panic when he saw me, and the spectral wolf at my side.
"CAPE!" The man screamed.
I responded with a more level response, based on the training I'd done with my familiar. "Quick Attack." Of course I named them after Pokemon moves. There was no copyright infringement for me to worry about on Earth-Bet!
With the two words, Cujo bolted off like a bat out of hell, a snarl on its lips. I'd done a bit of testing beforehand to ensure that trained commands stuck between iterations of the spell, and pleasantly enough? They did. I wasn't sure if Wolf Pack was supplementing that for me, or if it was just how the spell worked normally, but we'd gotten in some practice to ensure that the wolf took down people with as little damage as possible.
Granted, it was still a goddamn wolf biting down on someone's arm to drag them across the ground and manhandle them. Chances were the guy was going to walk away with some serious bruising, but on the bright side, it wasn't anything he couldn't walk off, or that I couldn't fix afterward.
I saw him dip out of sight in an instant, my familiar in tow as the two of them fell in a tumble of snarls and panicked shouts. That was one dealer wrapped up and occupied, at least for the moment, with the Grimoire chucking something haphazardly my way.
Spoiler: Magical Weapon Maker(700CP)
Magical Weapon Maker(700CP) - A thousand some odd years ago, magic was introduced to this world in the most dramatic way possible. As it turned out, magic was deadly and damaging to humans, leading to the destruction of the human race. Who could have guessed? But it's the nature of humans to adapt and learn when confronted with danger. And then weaponize that danger. Which is what the humans did all that time ago.
You now have the knowledge that those humans developed. You can now take innocent children and 'develop' them into magical weapons. Or monsters, if you want to be accurate/empathetic about it. The process is complex, intricate and for most folks, completely unconscionable. Besides bodily alteration, mental stress and what arguably constitutes, torture, you need to infuse the bodies of your new Weapons with maso, an extradimensional chemical that serves as the source of magic in Nier's world. (If future jumps you can substitute similar magical materials.) But if you completely ignore the moral issues, the results are worth it. Examples from canon include No. 6, a giant skeletal monster, No. 7, a boy with petrifaction powers, and the Grimoires, living books capable of using powerful magic called Sealed Verses. With some experimentation, you can come up with different variations too.
I'll even give you some samples of maso to get you started. Go on, get to work. You have Weapons to make.
Is this an intervention Grimoire? Do you have some sort of gripe with the way I release stress? I'm not even dumpstering these guys like Glory Girl!
That mental moment it took for me to reject the perk was enough to distract me as I entered the living room, not paying enough attention to my surroundings. One moment I'm fine, the next there's a guy with halitosis breath slamming me against the wall, eliciting a grunt from me as he did his best to hold me there.
Frenzied, overstimulated eyes stared at me from wild brown hair, as the dealer I'd missed yelled to his friends. "I've got him held dow-"
Sparks.
In an instant he was convulsing from what I had to imagine was a little under fifty kilovolts. I mean, that's about what I got when I tested it out with an voltmeter, courtesy of a hardware shop. It should be a bit under standard taser voltage according to the internet, and I was happy to see that it wasn't wrong.
He dropped to the ground, gaping and twitching like a fish on dry land. A solid kick to the chest was enough to make him roll over with a groan. I wasn't strong enough to cave anyone's chest in yet, but strong enough to kick like a mule and leave someone unwilling to get up? Yeah, I was getting there.
My willingness to fight did not translate into fighting experience, so I had to play things by ear. Still, that was proof enough that I wasn't using the appropriate amount of force to handle this situation. So be it.
With a thought, Conjuration and Projection intermingled to create a bastardized alteration from a conjured sword. A version that was more silvery gleaming metal than spectral and ghostly, with a thoroughly blunted edge. The weapon itself wasn't essential to me, so much as having it in my hands allowed me to activate weapon magic with an errant thought.
"Carthaginian Armory!"
If I had a bastardized noble phantasm, you'd better believe your bottom dollar that I was going to yell its name. Was this going to get me mocked when I eventually faced other Capes? Yes, but let's be real, I was always going to end up a slightly corny figure just by the dint of my magical abilities. No point fighting it when I could lean into my persona of Folklord, and have a bit more fun with it.
Swords blossomed out of grayish light all around me, coming out of thin air, gleaming in the low light of the home. Four, then five, six, hovering in a slow orbit around me. The fact that I wasn't cackling like a madman was a testament to the strength of will that kept me even remotely focused on the fact that I had a mission on my mind.
Casting my eyes on the room around me, the living room was empty. The guy in the kitchen was occupied, judging by the shouts and growls. Stepping out of the living room, it was only twitch instinct and the faint feeling of seeing something out of the corner of my vision that kept me from getting shot. And even then, it was a close thing.
"Get fucked! You can't screw with the Merchants!"
The gunman with the lovely handle of the English language at the top of the stairs was half descending with one hand on the railing, and his other hand occupied with his gun. That sort of chaotic worry for his safety was the only reason I hadn't gotten shot, and the bullets had mostly gone wild, even if they left my ears ringing from how close the gunshots had come. There was no reason to allow him to finish the job either.
I barely needed to look his way to send two of the summon swords his way, streaking through the air like blinding lines of light. Dodgeable, but not while he was on the staircase like that, and the magical weapons skewered him. Physically, he was fine… but monster magic didn't harm the body. It attacked the spirit, his DETERMINATION, and his will to do… much of anything. Compared to the other combat options at my disposal, this was significantly better when it came to taking down mooks without actually hurting them permanently.
What having your soul speared through with two swords was like, I didn't have the faintest clue, but it was enough to take him down. Not dead, but falling back and sliding down the steps, breathing in a pained wheeze as the swords disappeared out of his chest.
Pausing for a moment, I took in a breath, taking in the environment again and listening for signs of movement. No one was stomping or shifting around in the creaky wooden floors upstairs Not a sign or sound of anyone on this floor. Which just left the basement for the other three guys I'd been suspecting were here, probably holed up in the basement and prepared for a hostile Cape to come barging in.
Lovely.
Even I couldn't tell if I was grinning and gritting my teeth as I walked towards the basement door, my free left-hand lighting up in a Lesser Ward as a shield to prepare me for whatever was behind it. Sucking in a breath, I opened up the door-
BANG!
SHIT. GODDAMNIT. OW.
I didn't get shot, but I was somewhat worried about tinnitus in my ear now, after that bullet had ricocheted right past it, as the Merchant lying in wait at the bottom of the stairs took the opportunity to unload. Lesser Ward was, well, lesser than the upgraded version of it, which immediately made me painfully aware that I'd need to invest in learning it as soon as possible. It just barely managed to deflect under handgun fire, and not without making my reserves plummet precipitous for a brief moment.
"Screw off!" Swiping my hand down towards the guy at the bottom of the stairs was unnecessary as a movement, but it made me feel better. A tactile sensation to go along with the way two of my swords flew forth, all but pinning him to the wall with a pained squeal coming from him. He was out of the fight the moment they evaporated, leaving me with three left before I regenerated them.
All the while I was in motion, stomping down the steps to keep moving. It let me see the other two Merchants I'd been expecting, one of them a woman furiously typing away on a phone. Granted, I don't think any of the Merchant Capes would be able to get here quickly enough to stop me from doing what I wanted, but it was still good to be aware.
The other was a guy picking up a baseball bat, and menacingly swinging it as he came towards me, fury on his face. "You think Skidmark is gonna let you get away with this? Don't you know who we are?!"
"Bad jokes?" I responded, an eyebrow raised as I looked at the man.
That answer threw him for a loop, and I didn't hesitate to capitalize on the advantage. The basement wasn't all that big, so I didn't have to be precise, just overwhelming, as I tilted the blades and had them fly at the Merchants. It was only important they touched them, not cut them, with two going for the guy, and nearly laying him out, and the third going for the woman's phone hand.
In the back of my mind, the Grimoire fished around for another connection, and while it was something I could connect to, I rejected it all the same.
Spoiler: Psychic Abilities - Psychometry(100CP)
Psychic Abilities - Psychometry (Three Dots) - In the World of Darkness, psychic abilities and mythic sorcery are, at first glance, completely different. However, both manipulate the same powers, albeit in very different ways, and are both considered forms of linear magic. While a sorcerer utilizes numerous tools and ceremonies to harness supernatural powers, a psychic makes do with lots, and lots, of willpower. Furthermore, the majority of psychic powers are innate, and can be improved, but not gained, without outside interference, in stark contrast to sorcery.
The ability to pick up residual psychic energy upon objects, locations, or people and view their pasts.
[3] Impressions and dreamlike images of the most emotional incident involving the object are created, clearer than previously possible. Furthermore, the psychic can discern the approximate age, gender, and emotional state of the object's owner, in addition to what they felt at the time, and a general idea of the owner's personality.
(CG Note: Requires Psychic Abilities - Psychometry (Two Dots) - World of Darkness: Sorcerer first.)
Currently, I was in the market for far more useful abilities Besides that, I didn't have the prerequisites for it to begin with. There were situations where psychometry could prove invaluable, but those were well and truly in my future.
Utility could come when there was a lull in the pressing things trying to kill me, and that probably wouldn't be till the summer swung around. No point in mulling over all the things that were going to try and kill me in my future, though. I had enough pertinent threats and problems in my present as it was.
With that being said, I'd taken the moment to more or less take a breath and enjoy a few seconds of relative peace. Sure, my familiar was still upstairs on that one Merchant, but that was just how I knew he wasn't going anywhere. He'd be fine, and if he wasn't, I'd heal him up enough on the way out.
Instead, I took in my surroundings in what had to be where they were stashing their cash and some of their finished drugs on a nearby table. One of the neatest places I'd seen yet in the whole home, which said a lot about where their relative priorities were when it came to the lab itself. Mostly the arrangement of drugs that were present appeared to be crystal meth, which I immediately took some steps away. No point getting drug fumes in me.
Then I went for the money, to swiftly count it up and see what I was working with.
I wasn't walking out of here wealthy, but around seven-hundred and fifty-eight dollars in various denominations of bills was swiftly shoved into my backpack, while I grabbed the Merchant's phone off of the ground and lazily cleared out the numbers. Then I dialed 911.
"911, what's your emergency?"
"You guys might want to send someone to…" What was the address again? Oh, right, I stored it away in my circuits. Rattling it off, I didn't miss a beat in continuing. "This is Folklord, an independent hero. I just hit a Merchant stash house at that address, and I'm planning on hitting two more before the night is through, just as a forewarning. If you come now, you'll find a bunch of drugs and illegal guns all over the place."
I'd be amazed if any of these Merchants had permits to even own firearms, let alone the other charges they'd be able to get them on. A parahuman moving into a building was a great excuse for police to do 'welfare checks', especially after I'd kicked down the door.
"Actually, if you'd be willing to let us transfer you to the PRT line, I'm sure-"
"Nah, I'm good." Without a moment's hesitation, I hung up and dropped the phone, before moving to leave the building, and then spending the requisite energy to turn back into a raven. As much as I'd like to be more trustworthy with the right authorities, I wasn't planning on it happening on any other terms but my own. At least, if everything went according to plan tonight.
The next stash house wasn't any harder than the first, so I won't go into too much detail. There were lessons learned about clearing my corners and being perhaps a bit more subtle with my entrances, so I just manhandled the back door lock instead of kicking down the front and began to clear the place from room to room methodically.
Carthaginian Armory might have been the bootleg Gate of Babylon, but it gave me an extremely effective Blaster configuration against unarmored targets. If I was going up against Coil's trained mercenaries, or people with a bit more wits behind them like the other gangs, things likely would have been very different.
Financially, the second one was a bit more barren than the house before it. I'd only picked up three-hundred and eighty-two dollars, which was nice, but I had some pretty big ambitions for my Cape career. That, and the fact that whatever Formalcraft I did or helped Rio do later on was likely to wipe out whatever finances I did have when we got started. Why couldn't the Merchants be more successful drug dealers?
Take it from someone who was an adult for a while after being a teenager, money never really lasted as long as you thought it did. If I was a real teenager, this much would have seemed like a fortune. With the mind of a grown man, I could see it for the pittance that it was. That's when I came up to the last house, and this one seemed a bit more… secure.
There were cars in front of the three-story townhouse, and it at least promised to be a hub of activity in a way the other places weren't. Was it another stash house? A full-blown lab? Where some of the actual movers and shakers behind the gang were residing? I couldn't tell, but the Grimoire picked up on my anticipation as it groped in the void for something new.
Spoiler: Shard of a Heartbroken Wish(600CP)
Shard of a Heartbroken Wish(600CP) - This glowing blue shard carries a deep regret with it… spurned affections, forgotten friends, unspoken cruelty and despair. Despite this, it seems to have some kind of resolve behind it… corruptive and influences that seek to control the mind and heart are banished from your presence, unable to affect you so long as this shard is held close to you. You may 'burn' the shard, destroying it until the following month, to completely exorcise a location and all those within it of such influences and infections, and they will be unable to return or affect anyone within that radius for the next day.
Too rich for my blood for the effect that it holds, and I couldn't purchase it if I wanted to either. So that charge in the Grimoire was left unspent, beginning to build up to some silly levels once again. That boded well for my future, even if I was a little annoyed by not having any last-minute additions. Some big-ticket items in the Grimoire could seriously change things overnight for me, but I couldn't force the process as much as I'd like to.
Looking at the building in front of me, there was no way I was going to get in hidden this time. There were just too many people to go skulking around, and I hadn't figured out how to transform into anything smaller than a raven. Yet. Which meant I had to handle things fast and loud.
Most Merchants flat out didn't want to fight Capes. Oh sure, if you had them cornered they'd draw whatever they had, take a swing, cuss you out. But if you made yourself seem scarier than they could handle, chances were they'd split on the first sign of trouble.
Much like an animal making itself seem like it was much more dangerous than it was, that's what I had on my side in the upcoming engagement. Like the mighty frilled-neck lizard, it was time to puff myself up and seem a more genuine threat.
There was no way this plan could ever go wrong
This entire plan revolved around me dipping into Ghur spells, and an area of effect one as well. Crow's Feast was not a spell I'd usually pick to cast, but the bright side about it was that I could sort of flex out the hard and fast knowledge I'd gained about it. If I hadn't gained experience messing around with spells at this point, I don't think this would have worked.
Normally, the range was a tidy space of 48 yards, of aethyric crows that ripped and teared at the faces of whoever was unlucky enough to be in the radius. Not too shabby, but the amount of damage to people was unacceptable. But weapon magic could be very… loose… about what counted as a weapon, probably because Monsters in Undertale used all sorts of wacky, silly attacks all the time.
If you adjusted the spell just right and made it so that it was powered by my sense of DETERMINATION and SOUL, rather than just Ghur, the end composition of the spell could be modified. No one was going to go blind with the slight modification, but they would have to deal with what were violent projections that attacked whatever extension of their soul was on their face. They'd fly through inanimate materials to wreak havoc on the given Merchants and whoever else was inside, without having to deal with actual casualties. Just enough to set off some panic.
And I was reasonably sure that any drug lab shenanigans wouldn't go up in flames if interacting with magic! Like, ninety percent sure, which is a better ratio than most parahuman powers could boast!
Standing in a nearby alleyway, unlike most instances when this spell would be cast, I wasn't in any particular rush yet. It meant I could calm myself and focus on the fickle winds of magic, or more accurately, replicating Ghur with my magical energies and sheer grit. Like a pot set slowly to boil, I could feel that crescendo of barely restrained power bucking to be freed, with only my unnatural skill via the Grimoire's perks enabling me to stay in control.
Even then, that was a touch-and-go thing, requiring every iota of concentration granted to me by magic circuits over the flow of unnatural energies and mana. Ghur didn't want to be tamed, by design, and certainly not by any mortal mage. So when I let go, I felt a flood of relief, feeling my reserves plummet in the interim.
Which was right when the screams started.
Welp. No rest for the wicked.
I was already beginning to move around the hedge I'd been crouched behind, which gave me my first view of the clusterfuck I'd set into motion. Crows flooded forth from the earth, no manmade obstacle able to stop their chaotic tide. Caws and croaking calls filled the air, black feathery bodies bleeding red from phantom wounds, iron-shod beaks that gleamed in the streetlight. In a different situation, I might have called them beautiful, if it wasn't for their proclivity to go for the face.
In an instant the cheerful, casual mood of the house had been thrown into complete and utter chaos as crows pecked at faces, scratched at noses, and generally prepared to give everyone present nightmares about the event. They were so distracted in fact, that they did not pay any attention to the crappily-dressed Cape until I was right on them.
Escrima sticks, really solid bars of iron, were projected out of my hands as I ran up the walkway. Glowing mage circuits peeking through the cracks in my costume gave me a haunting glow as I whipped out indiscriminately at anyone in my way, aiming for arms and legs. Nothing that was actually all that hard or targeted given my lack of skill with weapons, but enough that the cries of additional pain were going to be nursing bruises come the morning.
And if there was anything worse than that, I could fix that when I was done. Restoration had been on my list of schools to quickly learn for a reason.
Chaotic as the moment was, it wasn't going to last forever, as I could already feel the aethyric creatures I'd brought forth beginning to fade. Thankfully, I didn't need them to last longer than to allow me to get inside, where the chaos was still reigning. Naturally, my presence didn't help things as the all-out, frantic call of alert rang forth.
"GET MU-!" Some guy cried out before a bird began pecking at his face, and his cry turned into a shrill scream.
Like a bomb had been dropped, the Merchants present by and large began to try and split, and for the most part, I didn't stop them. The rest had a moment of indecision, concern, and anger, which slowed their response time. It was kind of them to allow me to cast more spells, so I repaid them accordingly.
Oakflesh layered into my skin, as I tugged at weapon magic mentally and suddenly the air was full of gleaming, glowing rods. There's a joke in there somewhere, but I'm not as funny as Clockblocker or Regent, so I'd fall back on what I knew best. Immediate, ruthless violence, as the whizzes of weapon magic filled the air, spinning and waving about, smacking into whoever had the gall to stay around.
My initial blitz had them completely off-kilter, like when you kicked an ant hive and saw all the drones come out to investigate the assault. If there was ever an opportunity to address the presence of a Cape in the room, I didn't intend to give it to them. They came at me, yet the gulf between someone with even a low-level Brute power and completely baseline humans showed out at that moment.
Bats and knives came at me, most assuredly tearing at my costume, but leaving my flesh unmarred at best and bruised at worst… but never anything bad enough that I couldn't manage to do this. To fight my way to the kitchen, as I took slow, measured steps down the hallway.
One woman took a swing, only to end up with a magical baton to the knee, sending her crumpling to the ground in pain.
Another bright bulb got the sneaky idea to come up from behind, arms wrapping up around my arms, his friend coming in to capitalize with furious blows to my chest. Never had I been more grateful for Oakflesh than in that moment. Their reward for playing stupid games came in the form of stupid prizes, as I willed two of the floating batons to clobber them upside the head, freeing me from the impromptu ambush.
I was stepping through the threshold to the kitchen when the Grimoire chimed, alerting me to a new connection.
Spoiler: Pagan Science(600CP)
Pagan Science(600CP) - You've managed to uncover some of the secrets of old, the very same knowledge that underlies 'Sakurai Theory', the theoretical basis of the Symphogear system. With this knowledge, many of the more mysterious functions of the Symphogears become clear. You can repair and install new functions into Symphogears, that manipulate existing features, like forcing a berserk state or tuning it to raise synchronization coefficients. What's more, your glimpses into Sakurai theory indicate some possibilities of inducing Human-Relic fusion, but to complete the theory you'll need an existing test subject…
It was interesting, and I was pretty keen to get a Magitek perk eventually, but this one wasn't it. Maybe if I had a Symphogear I'd be more cross about not being able to turn into the magical boy I always knew I could be. For now, I'd have to bemoan my current fate as a gritty henshin hero.
Entering into the kitchen, I saw all the haphazard signs of a drug operation going on, which made me doubly happy I had a bandanna on. Preferably a better mask, but it was better than having absolutely nothing. Not the cooking part, which was probably elsewhere, but specifically the distribution and part of the operation. There was… an uncomfortable amount of methamphetamines on the table nearby, which likely played into that.
I was a tad more worried about the bald goblin in a diamond mask, currently in the middle of having his arm change into tendrils and combine with a nearby microwave. The number of parahumans who were starkly and profoundly unattractive was a surprisingly short list, given their active lifestyle, though most of the Merchants didn't get the memo. For example, the one in front of me.
"Who the fuck are you?!" Mush raged, impotent sounding, coming from someone arguably dangerous enough to make me cautious. If you let Mush get some momentum going, or get the wrong materials, he could be as dangerous as anyone else with power armor. My initial ambush had given him the opportunity and warning to assimilate an alarming amount of loose crap from around the kitchen.
And here I was, gawking and giving him those precious seconds.
Startling briefly, I began to lift my hands, electricity crackling briefly across my fingers. After whacking through all those mooks, I won't lie, I was feeling pretty good about myself. "I'm Folklord! Give it up, this operation is a bust! Put your hands above your head, and surrender!"
It wasn't even a good attempt at intimidation. Pressing people was just not my strong suit, and I didn't have the inherent raw charisma or acting ability of someone like Rio. This was probably why Mush did not surrender on the spot, and instead chose to do something more sensible from his point of view.
Like slamming his microwave-covered fist right into my face.
600CP in Reserve.
Spoiler: Author's Notes
As usual, like, watch, tell me what I've done wrong, or how much you enjoy things. Thanks for reading!
Chapter 6
Let us preface things with a bit of knowledge. I've been punched in the face before, and while the experience wasn't pleasant, I'd like to think of it as a growing experience. Not only to prevent my mouth from writing checks my fists couldn't cash, but also as a general introduction to how to get your ass beat in a fight.
Then United States Air Force basic training did something called 'basic combatives', but anyone who went through that course can tell you that it was a joke. Going through that course during BEAST week, where you're in a 'simulated' deployed environment was hardly enough to prepare you for a real fight. I went into maintenance, which meant I then proceeded to get even less actual combat training than most people, and the closest I brushed up against that stuff was being voluntold into providing security to events around the base so the squadron could have extra money for the Christmas party.
Why am I going through all of this at the beginning? To give you a little bit of why I didn't necessarily regret the actions that I'd taken up to this point…
… but I regretted perhaps being less decisive in my assault than I should have. There's something to be said about ending things quickly, and promptly, and dragging out things like I had.
Those tendrils of Mush's Changer form had a lot more give on them than I would have thought, so what should have been a wild swing with his makeshift microwave mace limb ended up suckering me right in the face. Getting slammed in the nose with a household appliance sent me flying back readily, pain blossoming into a dull throb as I rolled ass over teakettle onto my back with a muffled swear.
It was pretty much because of Oakflesh and Evolution that I didn't have a broken nose, or a concussion at that moment. That didn't mean it nullified the surprisingly blunt force method of attack that Mush had chosen, not as I began to stumble to my feet.
Getting up with shakier knees than I'd like, it was a pure positive that I wasn't being attacked again. The downside of this was that I could see Mush beginning to collect everything and the kitchen sink- literally-as he began to build up that goddamn annoying part of his power. His body transformed into viscous tendrils, pulling whatever he could grasp for into a growing melange of material.
"You think you can just come and fuck with the Merchants, huh?" The man raged, sounding more like a squeaky toy than a grown man. "A little pissant vigilante, thinkin' they're some kinda hot shit?"
I mean, yeah, but goddamn, he didn't need to call me out like that.
Squaring my stance, I didn't intend on getting close enough to let him have the opportunity to just straight out overpower me again. If I had a higher Brute rating, like Glory Girl tier, maybe we could smack each other around with no concern for each other's safety. For now, I was precisely the squishy sort of caster that I'd rather not be, so it was time to rely on the old mainstays of my arsenal. Weapon magic flew out towards him… and didn't seem to do much when it hit, besides make the rapidly growing changer grunt.
Was I that surprised? Not really, it was a low-powered perk, and I'm pretty sure that Undertale magic did not account for whatever shard-based fuckery happened to the soul when you shot magic at it. That, and the strength of the soul probably had something to do with the relative strength it held against assault. Parahumans might all be traumatized oddballs, but that sort of thing was exactly what tended to strengthen your spiritual self if you survived it.
Which meant I might need to rely on more physical means of attacking.
Electricity sparked from my fingers again as I raised both hands and let loose Sparks, flying fast towards him. I'd modulated the spell to maybe be on par with a taser with practice, but much to my chagrin Mush had almagamated enough somewhat non-conductive materials to blunt the effectiveness of the spell. He was shocked, but not as much as he could have been as more of Sparks fell harmlessly on ceramic and plastic kitchenware, still being incorporated into him.
This… might be more difficult than I'd expected.
He took a few menacing stomps toward me, letting out a noise halfway between a squeal of pain and a ferocious battle roar as he came barreling down the hallway from the kitchen. Mostly to follow me as I tactically retreated towards the front door, left hand dropping Sparks to focus on instead casting up Conjure Familiar. "C'mere, you little bitch! Fight like a real man!"
"No thank you, sir!" I called back, skipping out of the front door and leaping off the porch, dropping into a roll as I wracked my brain for what I could bring to bear in this fight.
Anything fire-related was right out, just as a baseline. It's not that it wouldn't be effective in this situation, but I didn't want to try my luck preventing a fire in a house this old and dilapidated, to say nothing about the rest of the block. Reinforcement was something I could rely on to a degree, but the cost to my body tended to be brutal, as my leap out of the inflamed building had taught me well. With the way things were looking though, I might have to rely on it more than I'd like.
So that left more electricity, which had a debatable effectiveness already, and which would only get worse as he absorbed more non-conductive materials. Plastic, dry wood, ceramics, the like. I wasn't left with a lot of offensive options that weren't going to be too damaging, except for Frostbite… and that gave me the beginnings of a plan.
Mush followed after me out of the house, and his engorged frame squished out in a somewhat bulbous shape as he did so. I could still see his shiny bold head in that mass, but more and more of him was beginning to collect whatever debris he could. Time wasn't on my side in this fight, not with someone who only got stronger the more junk they picked up, and outclassed my offensive capabilities at this time.
Mercifully, the Grimoire saw that I was about to have a hard time, and tossed me a bone for the trouble.
Spoiler: Apparitions Stalk the Night(200CP)
Apparitions Stalk The Night(Touhou Project: Parasol Paradise- 200CP) - You are greatly empowered while in the dark, and can manipulate darkness to such degree that you can envelop yourself in an aura of darkness where light becomes instantly extinguished. Those deeply connected with the void can extend the range of this power to cover a wide enough area to drown all of Gensokyo in a veil of darkness without difficulty, but doing so will gradually weaken the effects the further you stretch the range of this ability.
I knew nothing about Touhou, beyond the fact that the power levels were stupidly busted. What I did know was that I wouldn't mind being mistaken for Grue, with a power this versatile. An ability that was functionally always on whenever I was out and about on a dark night? Yes, please, and thank you.
The moment I accepted, I felt my body begin to swell with power, though not precisely reserves of magical energy. It was more like every shadow and patch of darkness I could feel around myself in the yard was connected to me all of a sudden, as Mush came stomping down the porch.
"Finally stopped running, shitter?" He growled through snaggleteeth, a portion of a partially disassembled rug covering parts of his face.
"Well yeah," I nodded, sagely, hands raised once more, as I willed the shadows around us to come flooding in. "I needed you to walk right into my trap."
Darkness flooded the front yard around me, thick and impossible for anyone to see through as light was extinguished the moment it hit the gloom. I didn't have enough juice to really go the distance with a massive Shaker effect, but to cover the two of us and the immediate surroundings in a sudden burst? Yeah, I could manage the upkeep for this much.
"You fool!" I cackled in a sudden pique of glee, trying not to wince when my voice cracked a little, and Frostbite began to rip out of my hands, wild and free. Evolution was very much a help when I merely began to lower my body temperature to match, eagerly beginning to freeze the wildly flailing Merchant. "YOU'VE STUMBLED RIGHT WHERE I WANTED YOU TO!"
Some people might say I was hamming it up a little too much. I'd say to them that they didn't realize how much fun it was to ham it up.
I could see through my darkness, though I suspected not as clearly as Grue could. More like everything was in a hazy gray, but I could still spot my target just fine. Which went a long way to ensuring that Mush's panicked attempts to keep me from freezing and disorienting him continued on. If I was just shooting cold air at him, this plan would have never worked, but I was condensing the streams of Frostbite pouring forth from my hands, throwing in the cryokinesis the Hydraulic portion of Evolution granted me, doing my best to freeze the exterior of his body.
An unorthodox solution, but it wasn't as if he'd gotten a chance to roll up anything that was too durable for me to handle.
Slowly but surely ensuring that the armor he tried to mold to himself was gradually being frozen solid if only to provide the perfect brittleness for my next attack.
"LO', THE END!" Don't begrudge me the way I yelled, as a metallic bat was Projected from my hands. Distantly I noticed the way using Prana heated up my body interacted interestingly with my Evolution's ability to modify my body temperature. Something to keep in mind for future experiments. For now, I had a supervillain to beat the shit out of.
"YOU'RE FINISHED!"
"NO!" Mush screamed, but frankly, it was his fault for getting into a fight with a Trump that could manifest new powers at the drop of a hat. Now, he may not have known that, but hey, ignorance is no excuse.
There was a big, stupid grin on my face as I swung the bat back, glowing lines of Reinforcement spreading along the surface of the weapon and my body, before I swung and impacted with Mush's body. My skill with it wasn't all that great, but that was fine. I wasn't looking for raw skill, I just wanted raw power running wild, and I especially didn't care if the bat survived the strike.
After all, I'd made all his armor brittle as ice with my actions. I wasn't too worried about permanent damage to him either, since Changers tended to not have to worry about that a ton when they shifted back to their normal bodies. And if he did get hurt… well, I learned Restoration for a reason.
My bat strike landed with a loud crash and practically smashed through whatever armor he'd been building up - and it was music to my ears. This was why I followed it up with more attacks, dodging when needed and then manifesting glowing copies in the air to attack the exposed flesh and tendrils. All the while, I could feel the Reinforcement on my body and the bat began to tense and fray, my control over it beginning to struggle the longer I kept up these more intensive, concentration-based spells.
That didn't matter when he was trapped in an aura of darkness that inhibited his sight, while I could see every action he took. Dodging out of the way of his flailing attempts to swing at me, even when they clipped me in the shoulder with a hit or two that promised bruises later on. Considering that it was just me and him here, and no one could see the interior of the battle, my gaffes would go unnoticed.
Sure, there was a truly extensive collection of swears that were coming out of his mouth. It was an artless beatdown, but Cape fights were never meant to be fair. If the roles were reversed, he wouldn't have thought twice about beating the stuffing out of me. At least with what I was doing there wouldn't be any lasting damage, at least beyond any damage his spirit had taken.
Then it was just me, standing there and feeling all sorts of complicated ways as I let the darkness dissipate over the battlefield I'd just been fighting Mush in. I got to see the fruit of my labors, in the picture of a bruised and battered but otherwise fine Merchant Cape, groaning in pain, and not in any real condition to get away.
I was… a little bruised, sure, and my pride wasn't going to ever allow me to tell anyone that I got sucker punched by a Merchant, but I was happy enough with this result. When it came down to it, I'd got into a fight with a more seasoned Cape and won. For me, that was the real takeaway.
Ambling back towards the home, I fumbled around inside until I found the landline, and punched in the PRT hotline number.
"PRT, how can we assist you today?"
Clearing my throat, I proceeded to try and deepen my voice… which probably didn't work very well. Better than nothing when it came to obscuring my identity though. "Hello, this is Folklord. I have Mush at 3478 Mulberry Street, can I request PRT and Protectorate pick-up? Or should I just leave him beside the street?"
"Ah, we'll be directing some troopers your way soon."
"Cool, thanks!" With that I hung up, not even bothering to wait for whatever else they had on the line. Hanging up on people was anathema to what I was raised to do, but if I wasn't supposed to do it, why did it feel so good? No wonder Shepherd kept hanging up on the council, this shit was fun.
Moving back outside, I sat on the porch and twiddled my thumbs as I awaited whoever the PRT and Protectorate were going to send to pick up Mush. Chances were, even if there hadn't been a captured parahuman sitting on the lawn, they'd still send someone, if only because I'd run roughshod over some Merchant operating that night and likely gained myself a fair bit of enmity from the faction. They'd have been on alert because of some random parahuman going nuts on a gang all the same.
It didn't take more than ten minutes for the sight of distant PRT sirens coming down my way. But Velocity showed up in about five minutes.
Speedsters were fundamentally a pretty cool powerset, and I don't think the Grimoire had anything like it inside of it. Ways to deal with speedsters, sure. So that was why I tried to dredge up what I remembered of Velocity as he blurred into view, a winning press smile on his face.
His Mover power let him go at stupid speeds, at the cost of decreasing the amount of force he could exact on the world the faster he used it. That in and of itself sort of gimped his powerset in my eyes, which was a shame. Very few things could beat running very, very fast.
Right then and there, the Grimoire decided me being distracted as I stood up was the perfect use of its time.
Spoiler: Talent - Arcane Attacker(50CP)
Talent - Arcane Attacker(Generic MG - 50CP) - Each purchase of this allows for increased talent - skill, control, versatility - with one package you purchased below.
It's not more power, but it is more oomph. Talent also means you train faster in the areas of the package, even if you're using skills and powers granted to you elsewhere. Each purchase is a roughly 70% training boost. (CG Note: Requires Arcane Attacker - Generic MG first. Obviously.)
The perk passed me by, mostly because I didn't have the one required before it first. This was just an upgrade of the one before.
"-y there, Folklord, right?"
My attention snapped back to Velocity as he approached in a slow walk, offering me a wave as I casually stood up from the porch. "You seem to have captured Mush, so would you be willing to speak a little about what you've been up to tonight?"
From what my memories had of the guy, he was stable for a Cape, if not always the most satisfied with his powers. I didn't see a reason to be leery of him, especially not when I knew every single one of my actions would be scrutinized later by the rest of the Protectorate and Wards. Giving him a short nod, I rested my hands on my hips. "Sure."
Taking a deep breath, I gathered my thoughts before going into my thought processes and the logic behind my actions. "I've been scouting out the Merchants, given their 'territory' is a bit scattered." Pre-Leviathan, they had territory in the most technical sense of the word, but more realistically they just held the parts of the town and underworld structure that no one else wanted.
That was one of the reasons why they'd never really been dealt with in any real manner. Decentralization was a very real benefit when it came to stamping out a criminal organization. "I can turn into a raven, so it's not that hard for me to use that form to just stay out of sight and fly around, taking stock of where they go and who they talk to."
Velocity nodded, obviously seeing where my logic and story were headed. "And you tracked the drug dealers to the houses you hit tonight?"
"Yep. Not much to say about them, beyond the fact that I found drugs and cash, burned the former, and took the rest." I'm not sure how legal that was, considering I wasn't officially signed up as an independent Hero, but I'm also very sure that if it came down to it I could get away from Velocity. "I didn't expect Mush to be at their last building, but it was an unpleasant surprise for the both of us."
"Right, right. Well, the troopers are coming up now," Velocity confirmed, jerking a thumb over to the heavy trucks rolling up with dudes carrying containment foam sprayers. "We'll just hose him down and pack him up to take in. I don't suppose you'd be willing to come in and give more expanded statements? Or perhaps officially sign up as an independent Hero?"
Here came the pitch.
"Let alone joining the Wards," Velocity continued, while I was blessedly masked so he couldn't see how bored my expression was. "I know it's not as glamorous as the street-level Vigilante work, but the statistics for independent Heroes, especially in Brockton Bay, leave something to be desired. Within the Wards, we could get you the training and protection you'd need to well and truly thrive."
I gave a soft sigh, grimacing slightly. "Listen, Velocity, I'm flattered at the offer, but I've got a small mountain of reasons that are keeping me from signing on. They're not things I think will change today, or tomorrow, or even in the future. Maybe one day I'll feel comfortable, but for right now I'd rather stay on the outside of the official structures than come in from the cold."
"Is there anything we could do to make you more comfortable? To fix some of those issues?"
"Not right now, but I'm working on them. The simple fact is, I can do a lot more good for the community when I'm not tied down by PR restrictions, patrol schedules, and other stuff like that," I insisted. "Besides, I know for a fact that the Wards lose people too."
And almost certainly they get swept under the rug more often than when a big Hero dies. In small towns and cities, where the Villain situation wasn't so bad, I was fairly sure the Wards program probably worked fine. Someplace like here though, was practically a warzone. That was without going into detail about how the Wards across the country got maimed, killed, or kidnapped.
I'm not going to blow up on Velocity here like that, though. There's a time and a place for bringing up my many gripes with the institutional failings of the Heroes on Earth-Bet. One day I'd hopefully be able to create something that could stand the test of time better, however. Dependent on whenever the Grimoire handed me the right tools for the job.
"I can respect that answer," Velocity agreed, giving a little sigh. "Well, just know that we're always happy to have new, Heroic parahumans in the Bay. It's not easy to choose to do this with your powers. Statistically, most new parahumans don't. But it's good to see the next generation coming into their own all the same."
Velocity was a pretty interesting guy. I didn't remember a whole lot about him, but he was coming up a bit more wholesome than I remembered. It was good to hear, downright interesting actually, to see that at least part of the Protectorate ENE had more of a moral backbone than I'd expected. Maybe not quite enough to make up for the worst on their roster, but I could live with it.
"That isn't to say I wouldn't like to try and come in for power testing sometime next week. There's an aspect of my powers I'd like to check if it's safe." I'd been hiding this part for some time, but it was time to come clean for some of my future plans to work.
Velocity cocked his head slightly to the side, in a fit of PR training to likely allow him to personalize and emote when wearing a mostly faceless mask. "An aspect of your powers such as…?"
"I can heal other living creatures with my powers. Mostly I've used it on myself, but I've tested it on animals," I explained. "But I haven't tested it on anyone else yet. Which is why I'd like the PRT to tell me whether or not it's safe with something more extensive."
He didn't say anything beyond staring at me, but I could all but feel him blinking underneath his visor as he came to terms with my words. "Well then…" He paused again, lifting a hand to his helmet as he listened to something on the other end of the line. "Would you be willing to come in Tuesday afternoon for the testing? Ideally, we can swing having Panacea come in to verify how it affects living creatures. Around… four in the afternoon?"
"That sounds good to me," I agreed, giving him a nod. There wasn't taking anything back at this point, and while I couldn't cast Cure Disease yet, I had a parahuman healing ability that was on par with Panacea's when it came to healing physical damage. I wasn't going to be going to the hospital every day after school, but that wasn't to say having the PRT spread knowledge of my abilities and their safety wasn't without merit.
Velocity gave me a small nod, and a smile as well. "Then we'll be seeing you then. Stay safe till then, kid."
At this point, the troopers were covering Mush in containment foam, and damn, I wanted to be able to reverse-engineer that stuff for myself eventually. For now, me and Velocity said our goodbyes as I began to make my way away, slowly morphing into a raven for my flight home.
At that point, the Grimoire felt as if I'd gained some deep, overarching meaning, so it tossed me a brand-new perk just to honor it. Or at least, that's the presumption I've been making about it. Sometimes that goddamn book is too snarky for my liking.
Spoiler: Go-Shintai(400CP)
Go-Shintai(Touhou Project: Forbidden Hermit - 400CP) - You have a go-shintai, almost a second body of your own, which contains some of your power. You may customise the general appearance and traits of the go-shintai, anything from a small object like a weapon or decorative item to an entire mountain. You may project any of your powers and abilities across your go-shintai, affecting anyone who uses it or touches it.
I'm not entirely unwilling to take a bet on Touhou perks, especially given how the last one worked so well. But I'm not inclined to take something this expensive for the benefit it gives. Am I going to allowed someone else to use my perks through whatever my go-shintai is? Or is it just being able to cast spells through them?
There's just not enough description and explanation, so I'm not incredibly keen to take it. Instead, I'd just ponder internally about my next real move as I flew home.
Rio was pretty excited to hear what the given fight with Mush was like, even though he'd somehow sussed out what happened with the Merchant socking me in the face. Which was why I'd enlisted him out of revenge and guilt-tripping on the 20th of March to come out with me, for my next plan.
"Are you sure this is going to work?" Rio looked skeptically at the makeshift stencils I'd carved out of cardboard,
"Like, seventy percent sure."
Bounded Fields were the next field of magecraft I'd wanted to experiment with and for perfectly good reasons. Their focus on making secret spaces was what I wanted for myself, and nasuverse magecraft was pretty handy with that. Most mage families weren't particularly shy about killing and torturing each other for their secrets, so Bounded Fields ended up being a very well-taught form of magecraft due to the dickishness of the universe it came from.
Thus, the old notes I'd received were surprisingly and delightfully thorough in explaining them. Nothing well and truly groundbreaking when it came to the magic, but enough of the basics for us to get started on a new project. Creating a bounded field around one of Brockton's many abandoned warehouses, and turning it into what would be a secret base for our operations.
Once constructed, the established boundary line will delimit the range of the powers of the Bounded Field, but it is possible to engrave magic sigils across the interior of the field to expand the area of effect and strengthen it with time. As their original purpose was for the creation of safe havens, the effects that can be set within a Bounded Field are in their majority those whose aim was to protect the caster. For me, a simple, straightforward Stranger effect was what I was shooting for, and everything else could come after.
I'm no Souren Araya, but as far as goals went… some of the bullshit he could pull off with Bounded Fields was the type of absolute nonsense I wanted in a world like Earth-Bet.
The stencils I'd carved out of cardboard had runes and sigils for the ritual itself in them, just for speed of crafting, and Rio handled the spraypainting because his hand was steadier than mine for this sort of thing. If only he had a little more faith in me…
"I'm just saying, this is weird, even by your power's standards. What would this make you, a Tinker, too?" He inquired, as I worked at the center of the barren, but not too dilapidated warehouse. We worked by flashlight to get ready for the midnight ritual, as I planned on combining this with Formalcraft to get the most out of the initial setup.
"Weirder things have happened."
"No, they haven't. Not to me anyway, and I'm the person that matters for this hypothetical."
"You're being an absolute brat," I whined.
"I'm sorry if I'm disbelieving in magic!"
"It's not magic! It's like, magecraft, at most!"
"What's the difference?" If only Rio knew.
The two of us continued like this as we worked, neither side giving up on their convictions. But if Rio was well and truly leery of the actions being taken, he wasn't stopping from painting the markings and symbols around the warehouse. If anything he was somewhere between curious and anxious to either get this over with and fail… or succeed.
I was counting on the latter when the dead of night began to creep on by. Standing around in the middle of a cold warehouse, with candles purchased from the illicit drug money stolen from the Merchants, and a rough translation of Gaelic on the paper in my hands?
Let me be honest with myself for once: this was the most wizard I'd ever felt in my life.
"Trí bás úaim rohuccaiter!"
"Trí áes dom dorataiter!"
"Secht tonna tacid dom dorodailter!"
My pronunciation of Gaelic had to have been atrocious, but at the end of the day, how you said the words didn't matter. It was the intent behind them, and the use of something old as far as Gaia and the world was concerned. That, and following the general precepts of the ritual itself.
The first line roughly translated to 'May three deaths be taken from me', which was supplemented with three whole chickens. Then the second was 'May three ages be given to me, and the three different sigils scattered around the property were highly reminiscent of clockwork machinery, which I suspected was where the mana from the world was flowing to. Lastly was 'May seven waves of fortune be granted to me!, and this was the part of the ritual I wasn't looking forward to.
Projecting a knife, I sliced my palm and let the blood drip into the center sigil, giving unto the world my very life force, suffused with magical energies and an offering for later fortune. For my enemies to have their eyes merely slide over the property I was consecrating. And for a few brief moments, the world felt still, quiet, as if nothing would happen.
Before everything went a little wonky, as the Grimoire distracted me from my ritual with a new perk.
Spoiler: Lead Bricks(200CP)
Lead Bricks(Warhammer Fantasy - 200CP) - Your very own Patriarch paid for his passage at Marienburg with transmuted lead bricks just like this pile of fifteen, and he was already in Altdorf before the enchantment wore off. Perhaps, like these lead bricks you now own, those were more receptive than most lead bricks to enchantment. Whenever you transmute these lead bricks into a more valuable metal, they will not only hold the enchantment for longer than normal but will also truly count as that higher metal even for magical rituals and costs. Another set will find its way to you within a week, should you lose, consume, or spend these bricks.
Potentially useful, but not really what I would want out of the Making category if I had my way. So I let my charge continue to build, with the distant promise that the Grimoire would reward me eventually. I wasn't in any particular rush to have to take every single perk.
Instead, I let my mind drift back to the world around me, and feel how a certain kind of pressure descended on the warehouse itself. The circle I'd spilled my blood onto glowed a ghastly red, which briefly alarmed me to have potentially done something wrong. My barebones knowledge of what Formalcraft was supposed to be like when combined with Bounded Fields came from Wiki articles and half-remembered lore ramblings by my friends on Discord. Me screwing something majorly up was entirely an option here.
More concerningly was the fact that my blood and the dead chickens were beginning to be consumed by that foul red light, eaten away by… something? I'm not sure, honestly, since I was fucking around and finding out with magecraft. Never a good thing, as the last vestiges of the sacrifices were gone.
Eventually, that feeling of weight on my shoulders and that of Rio's settled, and the light from the sigil began to fade. And inside the warehouse, there was a bit of an odd feeling there, one I couldn't readily put my finger on. The two of us looked at each other with the awkward, discomfited expressions of two teenage boys not sure whether or not it was alright to show how spooked they were.
"… Did it work?" Rio carefully asked, eyes still darting around to the shadows, paranoid of whatever might have happened in the aftermath of the ritual. I couldn't blame him, seeing that sort of veered into witchcraft at the end of it.
"Maybe?" I reached out to the center sigil, and I could feel the interface for the Bounded Field, charged with mana and magical energies. It appeared as if it'd worked, but it was hard to test for a Stranger effect whose specific purpose was to ensure that people didn't pay any attention to it. "Let's just act as it worked, and on the first sign it's not, ditch this place."
"That's not exactly very good practice for a wizard."
I gave him a little scoff. "If being a wizard means doing another midnight ritual as spooky as that last one, I'm pretty sure I might be willing to take a break from my career in ritualism."
"Still less screwed up than what happens in the Maggie Holt books."
That's a fair point. No matter what happens to me on Earth-Bet, I'll cherish the knowledge that I could have had the profound misfortune to end up in the Otherverse. It was a specific kind of fucked up that even I wouldn't want to touch with a ten-foot pole.
Giving him a nod, I focused on healing the cut on my hand, seeing the wound begin to fade away from an open laceration to a slowly closing scar, one that'd eventually fade away into nothingness. "Let's get back home for now. I can't do much in the way of alchemy or enchanting yet, but I do have some ideas about what to set up in this place."
"More ritual circles?" Rio guessed.
"Maybe later," I demurred. "For now, A proper hangout and fallback position wouldn't be amiss." This place was three blocks away from our own home, so in theory, it wouldn't be that bad as soon as we cleaned it up a bit.
Altogether it felt like there was a sea change for me after that night weekend, though. I wasn't just some dabbler fumbling around as a mage or a Cape, but someone was getting their feet underneath them. For that reason, more than anything else, I felt good about myself as the two of us packed up our ritual items and began to head home.
Spoiler: Author's Notes
I'm not entirely happy with how this chapter turned out, but it is what it is. Like, comment, tell me what you hated or didn't enjoy.
Spoiler: Accepted Perks
Apparitions Stalk The Night(Touhou Project: Parasol Paradise- 200CP) - You are greatly empowered while in the dark, and can manipulate darkness to such degree that you can envelop yourself in an aura of darkness where light becomes instantly extinguished. Those deeply connected with the void can extend the range of this power to cover a wide enough area to drown all of Gensokyo in a veil of darkness without difficulty, but doing so will gradually weaken the effects the further you stretch the range of this ability.
Chapter 7
March 21st, 2011
Missy Biron
Brockton Bay was a trash fire at the best of times, but it was home. All of its winding streets and manic chaos came together in a sum that was so much greater than its parts. It had people who might be misguided at times but were fundamentally, genuinely, good. A place that, if you removed the gangs and maybe got the economy going again, could be a nice place to live again.
Heck, it was half the reason why Vista was excited to grow up if only so she could escape the stifling rules and restrictions of the Wards and actually help.
She and the rest of the Wards were gathered in the spacious conference room, present for the power assessment briefing chiefly because a few of them had interacted with the parahuman in question. Also, it was literally above their base, so the short walk and elevator ride were a good way to break up the monotony of a typical shift.
Most of the usual suspects were present, save for Dauntless and Clockblocker. Gallant sat on one side of her, mostly because she'd taken the chair next to him, and Kid Win on the other, while Carlos sat a little closer to the Protectorate Capes. Shadow Stalker was about as far away from the Wards as she could manage, which was pretty par for the course.
Assault and Battery sat off next to each other, Miss Militia not far from the Wards, and Armsmaster a little closer to the Director and Velocity.
Little conversations were going on here and there as everyone slowly filtered in, but generally, they all knew why they were there.
Director Piggot sat at the head of the table, clearing her throat to get the attention of the assorted Capes to get the meeting started, her staid, serious stare leveled on the assembled parahumans in the room before she began to speak. "Currently, it's March 21st, 2011, and we're here today to give a tentative assessment to the parahuman known as Folklord. I'll hand it off to Armsmaster to lead us off."
With a nod from the blue-suited man, he glanced out at the assorted heroes at the table.
"On Friday, the 4th of March, our first inkling that a new parahuman was in the Bay was a police report from the Brockton Bay P.D., which referred to being called by someone who named themselves 'Folklord', who had just taken down two drug dealers. Upon arriving at the scene, the police found two dazed and wounded individuals wearing paraphernalia most commonly associated with the Merchants."
There were some crime scene photographs distributed around, but nothing too complex. Two very dazed-looking men, one of which was considerably more roughed up than the other. Still, compared to what some Vigilantes on their first nights ended up doing, the fact that these two men were still alive spoke at least somewhat in favor of Folklord's character and restraint.
"Both men were somewhat frazzled," Armsmaster continued, "-but professed consistent stories of the encounter between them. They were attacked by a parahuman that could project blasts of electricity from their hands, accompanied by what appeared to be a 'ghost dog'."
"Ghost dog?" Kid Win interjected, though mostly he was talking to himself, just saying it barely loud enough to be heard.
The older Tinker nodded. "Currently presumed to be one of the projections capable of being generated by Folklord, of a hitherto unidentified form of canine resembling a wolf."
Making sure no other questions or interruptions were waiting, Armsmaster continued. "The incident was noted down, but until the following one, we had little concrete information on his capabilities. On March 12th, that changed. I'll cede the floor to Vista."
Normally the situation might be presented to Kid Win, but Vista could take some pride in knowing that she had some degree of seniority over the Tinker. Even if Chris was a perfectly nice guy, she had to take her victories in life where she could get them. Puffing herself up before she started speaking, Vista raised her chin and tried to affect the most professional, clear tone she could.
"On a routine patrol around approximately 20:21 hours, I and Kid Win were given notice of possible parahuman activity at a fire that'd broken out at a nearby apartment building. Eyewitnesses described a parahuman rushing inside, and fighting the fires with some manner of ice blast, so we loaded up onto the truck for a preliminary observation."
More pictures of the remnants of the fire were spread throughout the table, but one more blurry photo stood out. It was taken from some kind of phone footage, yet for threat assessment and information gathering, even informal sources worked. That of a bulky figure in singed jeans, hoodie, and bandanna, leaping out of the window with a grown man in his arms. Something of a faint cerulean glow could be seen from underneath the photographed figure's clothing, but not much else.
Once everyone had gotten their fill of the photos, the Ward took that as a cue to continue. "As we arrived on the scene, firefighters were managing the blaze. That's when we saw Folklord resting on a nearby curb, using some kind of golden glow emanating from his hands, and directed on himself."
"Some kind of healing effect…?" Aegis guessed, and frankly, Vista was inclined to believe him, if only because of the visible relief she'd seen in Folklord's posture when he used it.
She shrugged at the statement all the same. "Potentially, but he wasn't particularly open about his powers when we approached him. Not hostile, but…"
"Laconic, maybe? Didn't seem very interested in talking to us, if I'm gonna be honest," Chris admitted. "If anything, he seemed like he wanted to bolt, especially when we started trying to pitch the Wards."
Missy nodded in agreement with Chris. "Yes, that was my take on it as well. Pretty much the moment that we got the rough outline of what had happened out of Folklord, it seemed as if he was more than happy to leave. This was when he transformed into some sort of black bird, and then proceeded to fly away."
In her own eyes, it was a pretty unusual array of powers, especially since she couldn't see much in the way of a unifying theme or concept between all of them. There was the potential that he was just a grab-bag, but they hadn't hit the point in the briefing where they started tossing out ideas and general ratings.
Armsmaster took over again at that point, with Vista and Kid Win reclining back against their chairs while he began to speak again. "Our newest, and most notable sighting of Folklord comes from the following Saturday night, March 19th."
"After some days - presumably spent resting - Folklord ranged out once more. This time was a significantly more organized, careful assault on the Merchants, hitting three locations in rapid succession - places we've identified as stash houses and labs."
The final real presentation piece was a map listing three different houses, no small distance away from each other.
"Our current theory is that he utilized his Changer transformation to swiftly execute raids on each location in one night, after having surveilled the sites for some time," the Hero continued. "Demonstrating an escalation, but also a more measured approach than the senseless patrolling that he performed in his first outing. These events culminated in him stumbling upon Mush, and confronting the Merchant Cape at the third location."
Their last few photographs were a bit cleaner than the first shot they'd had of Folklord. Him standing and talking to Velocity in what looked like a thoroughly ruined front yard, seemingly no worse for wear, and Mush was covered in containment foam nearby. However, the more unusual picture out of those shared was that of the front lawn covered in a haze of darkness.
"During all three outings, Folklore has displayed new abilities not shown elsewhere. Arrested Merchants describe the sudden creation of objects, manifesting floating weapons, and lastly caught on photo by a bystander to the event was the generation of a cloud of darkness extremely similar to Grue of the Undersider's Shaker effect."
While Vista had never personally run into Grue, she'd seen some scant photographs of his Shaker effect in action from the Undersider's smash-and-grab jobs. While the resemblance to each other's effects wasn't a one-to-one set of identical appearances, they were remarkably similar to one another, at least at first glance. It raised some interesting questions about the nature of Folklord's powers as well.
Gesturing over to Velocity, Armaster gave his fellow Protectorate member the floor. "From there, Velocity met with Folklord. If you would?"
"I was the closest patrolling Hero that could get to the scene quickly, so I was the first on the scene. Folklord seemed a little out of it when I tried to get his attention, but quickly snapped his awareness to me," Velocity rattled off about the encounter. "After going over the rough details of the night, that's when I proceeded to make the usual pitch for power testing, signing up as an independent Hero, and the Wards. He's definitely in the Wards age range, just judging by his voice."
"And he was no more receptive than before?" Piggot pressed.
"Not in the slightest," he confirmed, shaking his head. "Folklord professed that he might want to sign up one day, but for the moment he didn't have any interest in doing so. He did agree to some measure of power testing, however, concerning the ability to heal other people."
That got a pause out of everyone present because a new healing Cape in the Bay was… not an inconsiderable amount of news. The force multiplier of someone able to even provide situational, or minute combat healing went beyond words. It was part of the reason why groups like the Empire had proven so successful with one on their roster, able to mitigate the typically deleterious consequences of brutal parahuman battles.
Granted, it also meant that when word spread of this, if was proven to be effective… Well, chances were a lot of people were going to be interested, whether or not he fit their typical mold. Logically the Empire wasn't going to have any interest in him, but the other groups were a different story.
Piggot might not have liked Velocity's answer, judging by the look on her face, but she didn't have much choice but to accept it. As much as pushing harder for a new Hero to sign up with the Wards that could heal would do wonders for them, Vista wasn't sure if Piggot even had the leverage to lean on them to join as the Director might like. As messy as his first night seemed to have been, it was still leagues more cooperative than most new Vigilantes.
"With that all being addressed," Armsmaster rolled along, picking up the briefing where Velocity had left it. "-we should continue with some provisional ratings for Folklord. Outside of Breaker, Tinker, or Thinker, he's shown an array of abilities that'd functionally give him scores in just about every single classification. Which is why I posit he should be placed at Trump 6, as a type 4 or type 7 specifically."
That got a few whistles out of the assembled Heroes, and Vista couldn't even find herself disagreeing with the sentiment either.
The PRT classification system had its roots in ground patrol and response teams in New York as a means of quickly identifying threats and forming rapid reactions to said threats. At one point there were as many as thirty different categories in existence, but over time these were shrunken down and condensed, like how Shifter eventually became Changer in the common parlance when it was noted that the responses against one general type would work against the others.
Said ratings were the general ballpark for the threat to a team, rather than any indication of the level of raw power to a given ability. Even weak powers, if you were creative in using them, could prove serious threats. Vista had read the trooper handbook back to front at least four times, and she could recall some of the general guidelines when it came to Trumps.
If it came to a conflict, PRT squaddies were emphasized and ranged combat maneuvers, rather than getting up close and personal with the given parahuman. However, that was only if the nature of their powers precluded heroic involvement. So far, they didn't see anything like that from Folklord's current powerset.
As it was now, a rating of six usually meant that either a trained parahuman, or one parahuman and a squad of operatives, would be enough to handle the threat. However it should also be assumed that traditional actions would be met with a complication when engaging with the target, and the accumulation of further intel being requested but not required.
"That's not a small rating," Piggot pointed out. "Are we confident that we're not looking at a force multiplier for the gangs if they managed to recruit him?"
"I'm pretty sure we're not going to have to worry about that." Velocity said those words with a lot of confidence. "Unless the Empire or the ABB have changed their recruitment goals, from what little I could see of him, Folklord wasn't really in either of their demographics."
Well, Vista supposed that the one silver lining about having two large ethnic gangs in the city was that it was unlikely that anyone who didn't fit in their ethnic groups was going to be recruited into their ranks. The Empire definitely wouldn't be recruiting, though the ABB might be a little dodgy depending on whether or not they were that desperate to expand out their roster.
Armsmaster nodded in agreement. "Velocity is correct on that, given the details found by Kid Win and Vista in their meeting with Folklord as well. Beyond that, I'm going to further push that he be given sub-ratings in Brute, Blaster, Shaker, Master, Mover, Stranger, and Changer."
"Jesus," Assault sighed. "This kid's just missing three for the full set of classifications."
"And there's no reason to think he doesn't have powers that'd put him in range for the others, too," Miss Militia pointed out, which was a pretty solid point. "Are we sure he's not some kind of multi-trigger?"
That would explain why he had such a rampant variety in his abilities, rather than being a Trump. It probably wouldn't change his rating, but it would let them be on the lookout for whether or not the city was about to be flooded with a bunch of new triggers.
"We're not, though if he's part of a larger cluster, I imagine they'll be making themselves known over the next few months," Armsmaster posited.
At that point, the meeting devolved into the unspoken 'fun' part about threat rating assessments: bickering over what ratings to give the new Cape.
Chris pointed out that Folklord's Brute rating was probably somewhere around 2 or 3, given the feats that they'd seen him perform up to this point. Changer 1 was where the teen stood when it came to his ability to transform into a bird, though pending a change depending on whether or not he could transform into other animals. The bird form was also the reason for his Mover rating, although considering the speed of a bird, it was still on the lower side.
Some general concerns were raised about his possible Stranger rating when that Changer ability was tied into it, so that ended up higher than expected, especially with the emulation of something that looked eerily similar to Grue's power. Stranger 3 was what everyone more or less settled on, pending raising or lowering if it had the same qualities as Grue's darkness. This was prone to change, much like the Shaker rating, as more details came in.
In contrast, it was his offensive capabilities that seemed the hardest to pin down, and for sensible reasons. The array of Blaster powers that Folklord had demonstrated was daunting, ranging from elemental effects to manifesting floating weapons that didn't physically hurt, but harmed some sort of vital energy inside of struck targets. Blaster 2 was given for that, if only because they lacked information on whether or not his effects could prove more damaging, and got past more traditional armor.
Striker was relatively easy, clocking in at Striker 1 at the most. Creating weapons was interesting, but unless he was able to create firearms, or they had esoteric effects, no one was all that concerned. Master, however, was where he got a bit of a higher rating, clocking in at around a 3. His created wolves were dangerous, but the flock of manifested crows that swarmed a house seemed even more so.
"As it stands now, our general policy should be openness, with an eye for recruiting Folklord into the Wards." Piggot at the head of the table looked over the assorted Capes, measuring their expressions and nodding slowly. "While it's unlikely we have to fear him falling into the criminal underworld given his current displays of heroism, that isn't to say he's entirely safe on his own as an independent in the Bay. Stressing that is likely our best play here."
Nobody disagreed with that general mission statement, mostly because it was logical. Anyone who could boast about a Trump 6 assessment, knowingly or not, was the kind of firepower that the Heroes needed. At least, Vista looked at the situation like that.
Given the way Shadow Stalker kept on looking back down at the picture of Folklord and the faux-Grue power he'd manifested, not everyone might feel the same.
There was some waffling and potential brainstorming about what specifically his powers were, but the meeting ended with nothing particularly conclusive being defined. Not that she could blame anyone. Parahuman powers by their nature tended to have all sorts of subtle variations between what should have been simple permutations of the same power.
One Blaster could be creating flames from their hands, in an entirely biological but power-assisted process, while another could be merely opening tiny portals that ejected flame out. Until you did an in-depth power assessment on a given parahuman, you couldn't know what they were capable of.
Walking back to the Wards HQ with the other Wards, all Vista could do was wish the new independent Hero some luck. He'd need it in Brockton Bay.
March 22nd, 2011 Lisa Wilbourne
Lisa knew when she picked up the phone that something had Coil mildly concerned. Which meant that she had to be concerned about it.
"I'm requesting an assessment about a new independent Hero. Sending you the PRT files now."
No preamble in leading up to the request. Direct and to the point concerning new parahuman. A new parahuman has a power, or element of power, that interferes with plans.
For once, her power was telling her something juicy enough to make her interested. "Got it, boss. Bringing it up now." Opening up the private email was easy enough, and Lisa was already at her desk for her investigation, lazily looking at the files that Coil had undoubtedly acquired via his moles in the PRT.
Independent Hero, named Folklord, debuted around the beginning of the month with a slowly escalating track record. Wide array of powers, and tagged as a Trump 6 on their threat assessment rating. Sub-ratings in just about everything except for Tinker, Thinker, and Breaker. And the only reason they didn't have any there was because the document clearly outlined that they hadn't displayed any powers to that effect… yet.
She was holding off on letting her power run rampant on the smidgeon of data she'd peered through yet, instead scanning over everything first before she let it off the leash. When she came to the pictures and saw an eerily similar cloud of shadow, that's when she let run free of the set.
African American male, slightly overweight, combination of lower financial status and poor fashion choice resultant in current costume appearance. Altruistic. Not used to powers, and pauses in conversation imply a Thinker element. Specifically a moment of choice, or alteration. Trump aspect to parahuman abilities. Generation of sub-powers under conflict, or specific stressors?
That was a more interesting amount of information than she'd been expecting. Truthfully, she didn't know if Coil's power could even model Folklord based on what little she'd determined about the Thinker. It'd depend on whether or not he was simulating or creating new timelines. If the former, he'd only be able to account for models containing the data that he'd received on Folklord up to that moment. Though if the latter, she was fairly sure that'd be even worse because then Folklord could evolve entirely different powersets. powers.
That said, the fact that he was having trouble with a powerset like that with his power…
That was interesting to know. She might have wanted to ponder on his capabilities some more, but unfortunately, Coil was waiting on her assessment. Lisa though, was somewhat keen to see whether or not she could nudge things a little. Not too much… but enough to stack the deck in her favor for something like this.
"If I'm reading things right, you've got an adaptive Trump," she started. "Functionally with the capability to manifest powers, though seemingly low-rated ones, while engaging in conflict. Imagine if Eidolon and Dauntless had a baby, but the baby's power was capped."
Frankly, she had no idea on whether or not that was actually true. But it was what Coil would want to hear, and that she could wholeheartedly say she had not lied about if it was proven untrue. After all, her power wasn't infallible, and as much as she relied on it, sometimes she had to make her luck and schemes without relying on it potentially going down a false path of deduction.
"Does he seem like he'll be a problem to my operations?" Coil pressed.
"Not unless you somehow try to strongarm him," Lisa refuted. "I get the feeling that he'd be a poor recruitment choice just off the track record of his behavior and heroics. Beyond that, pressing an adaptive Trump into a corner seems like a generally bad idea on principle."
Very few things were more dangerous than a Cape who could pull new tricks out of a hat when they were at their most vulnerable and hunted. Let alone the threat of letting someone like this second trigger. She was sure Coil would make some probing investigations of his own, but even Lisa couldn't find out their identity just based off what scant information had been provided.
However, if he found Lisa some school records and photographs, there's a chance that she could change that.
"Hmm. Well, I'll have to take that for now," Coil responded, in a tone that made her fully aware he had no plans on doing so. "Back to more important matters, I have a job for you and the Undersiders. What do you know about the Ruby Dreams casino?"
Ah. Lisa's lips pursed, and she let out a slow exhale from her nostrils. She could already tell this was going to be the start of a migraine.
March 22nd, 2011 Rio Lopez
From an early age, Rio generally understood that it was going to be him against the world. It wasn't a profound understanding, but the uncomfortable musings of a boy thrust into maturing faster than his years should have allowed him. His parents were immigrants, and from what little he could remember of them and things he'd talked to other boys about, they weren't addicts.
That was how Odell's parents had gone, and while his friend didn't talk about them much, he didn't need to. The many group homes he'd surfed in and out of himself over the years, and the horror stories he'd overheard, let Rio know precisely how bad that sort of situation could be. Instead, he was fairly sure that his parents were not junkies.
No, instead he was pretty sure they were dealers of some kind.
A lot of hushed conversations of people coming in and out of the home from his earliest memories, at all hours of the day. Small items exchanged for wads of cash, snippets of talk and terms that didn't mean anything to him as a toddler, but older, and with the ability to turn an introspective eye back onto his memories? Things clicked.
His memories got a little fuzzy on the specifics of how they got pinched, though. Were they illegal immigrants, and immigration services had finally caught up and thrown the book at them? Or just a regular drug bust, with an amount of product that would see them going away for a decade or more? Rio genuinely couldn't remember, and the noncommittal answers he'd gotten as the years had gone on had more or less inured him to from asking about it over and over.
One day they were there, the next there was a social worker at his preschool, picking him up and taking him to the first of many homes to come.
In the back of his mind, there was that desire to know the truth, but it'd always been pushed down and squashed. After all, it wasn't like knowing would solve any of his problems, now would it? If he had any other family members that were interested in taking him in, or that he could have remembered, they would have done so by now.
Instead, he weathered the storm.
Some homes were good, with people that gave a real shit about the kids under their care. Those were the ones that it hurt to leave, like the one he was in now, because when that happened he was being shuttled off because of bureaucracy and a few waves of a pen to somewhere his conditions might not be as sterling. The houses where things weren't so good were… a challenge. Something to tough it out, and survive.
And the boys he was with could run the gamut. The easiest to get along with were the teenagers who had been living perfectly normal lives before they were dropped into the situation. They were bitter for a bit, but they didn't grow up as foster kids, so they eventually aged out. Not a huge deal in the grand scheme of things.
It was the kids who let the resentment of their situation get to them, or were so shaped by abuse that they let it leak into their interactions with others. Those were the bullies, the ones that'd test their boundaries with everyone just for the sake of it, steal, beat the shit out of you for looking at them for too long. Rio had long since developed the right sixth sense for scoping out those kinds of kids from the outset, giving them a wide berth, and making sure his belongings were well hidden or stowed away somewhere secure when he shared a room with them.
There were other generalizations he could make about other categories of kids in their situation, but then there were outliers so out of left field, so far beyond the pale, that he didn't know what to think about them. Odell was one of those people, just from as long as they'd known each other.
"You all prepared for the testing?" Rio asked the boy, as the two of them stood around in their claimed warehouse base. He'd been skeptical at first, but it seemed as if they'd succeeded in setting up a Stranger effect over their makeshift headquarters… and wasn't that a mindfuck?
Was it just an extension of Odell's powers, which were all by metrics, completely and utterly unfair? Or was Odell onto something when he called what he did magic? Did it even matter, so long as it worked?
Odell interrupted his interior thoughts, lazily putting on the last vestiges of his well-worn 'costume'. And wasn't that an argument, when he tried to get him to try and buy new clothes to replace them since they were one bad fight away from being in tatters. Odell shot back that they were still salvageable, and eventually, his power would let him make a new costume anyway.
But that was later, and this was now. "Yep. Some of the changes that happened over the weekend might throw them off, though."
As usual, his talent for understatement was modest. "Odell, you dropped like thirty pounds. You're still recognizable as you, but you literally look a little different with your mask off. And not that I don't believe you about the cyborg stuff-"
"It happened, trust me."
"-they're gonna recognize it the moment you walk through a metal detector. You sure you still want to do this?" Sometimes Odell worried him, because the guy was, well, weirdly worried about some threats, and unaware or unconcerned about others. That was part of what had initially drew him into his orbit at home.
He had a specific kind of optimism that felt… out of place. A generosity that seemed suspect in a city like Brockton Bay, for someone who'd been in a position like Odell. Any attempts to bully him by some of the other boys in the group home had washed over him, even when it'd devolved into short-lived fights. In all truth, he was a bit of an enigma.
Rio liked mysteries though, so he didn't mind taking his time figuring this one out.
"If they press on it, I'll just say that my power altered my body permanently," Odell responded, wrapping the bandanna around his face, while Rio sighed and plopped down on an abandoned couch they'd carried into the warehouse. "It's not even like the first time that's happened to a parahuman. Aegis has a bunch of redundant biology going on with his body."
There was a dubious look that spread across Rio's face, as he crossed his arms in front of his chest. "Isn't there a difference between that and being a full-body cyborg?"
That made Odell pause before he shook his head at the notion. "Not really. All of my cybernetics self-repair, which makes me a sort of holy grail for Magi Tinkers. Though they'll probably give me a new rating when they find out."
Yes, Odell. Remoulding every single cell in your body, giving yourself metal bones, implanted muscle fibers, and a new way to harness an exotic energy source is worth a Tinker rating. It took all of Rio's power to not give him a snarky response and merely a flat stare.
"And you're what, telling them about the healing stuff, and the communications power?" They tested that out briefly, after which Rio was a little perturbed by hearing his voice and feeling his general presence even after they'd split up with nearly a block between them. He was fine testing some of the more normal powers, but he outright vetoed being a subject of the Hypnosis shit talked about in those notes.
Odell wasn't the kind of guy to take advantage of that thing, but Rio also just… didn't want to be Mastered. So they politely agreed to just have him test it on a criminal or something, later down the line.
"Those are the only two I'm comfortable showing them," Odell admitted freely. "They already know about plenty of others I'm sure, but there's no reason to not keep a few cards close to the chest. I'm tempted to show them the anti-Master power, but I'm thinkin' not."
Honestly, Rio couldn't even disagree. He was pretty sure that Odell had other Thinker abilities outside of that precognitive stuff he'd told him about. Seeing the breadth of his other powers, he didn't see a reason to disbelieve him on that. Still, Battlefield Communication was a good sign that Odell was telling the truth when it came to eventually being able to hand out powers.
He was… more excited about that than he'd like to admit. Who wouldn't be? What sort of kid didn't dream about being a superhero when they grew up?
"Stay safe, I guess? Don't let them pressure you into signing anything weird if you're gonna follow through on your other plans?"
Rio couldn't see Odell's face, but from the way his eyes crinkled at the corners, he could tell the bastard was smiling. "Worried about me?"
"Worried you'll say something stupid? Without a doubt, yes."
That got a low chuckle out of him, as he began to amble towards the front door. "I'll be fine. What's the worst that could happen for a little power testing?"
The PRT and Protectorate tried to strongarm him when they realized he had very strong healing abilities? He said something dumb, or let loose one of the worrying Master powers he had when the Canary trial was still ongoing? Rio didn't know, and frankly, that was half the worry when it came to Odell.
One moment he could be sensible, and the next he was spouting something so absurdly optimistic that you couldn't believe your ears…
But Rio wanted to believe in him. So for now he'd put his trust in Odell, and at least think he could see his big plans for the city through.
700CP IN RESERVE
Spoiler: Rolled Perks
Highborn(The Elder Scrolls - 100CP) - The High Elves are the most magically gifted of the races on Tamriel. Not only do they have more Magicka, but it regenerates extremely quickly after being used. Their pure blood also grants them resistance to diseases.
Combat Cyborg(Lyrical Nanoha - 200CP) - What are you, human or machine? Why not both? Your body is enhanced by cybernetic augmentations that let your Linker Core channel and regulate the electronics within, in addition to a nifty self-repair system. These enhancements are seamlessly integrated into your body, letting you channel mana through your limbs or machine parts within your body. They even continue to function and grow along with you, letting you age and change without fear of the working parts rejecting it or becoming nonfunctional. Your skin and flesh still remains mostly the same and functional, as well. As a bonus, if you choose a background in this world, you may choose to be related or adopted into the Nakajima family by the time the jump starts… or perhaps a rogue cyborg of Jail's? That choice is up to you.
No Strings on Me(Mage: The Awakening - 400CP) - Your will seems to be your own. At least mystically speaking. To date, there does not seem to be a spell or oath that can actually make you do anything that you yourself do not want to do (not that they don't exist, just that they have yet to be discovered). You are immune to nearly all mystical compulsions that would affect your mind, and even signing an oath and swearing in blood would not bind you unless you desired it. You will not however gain the benefits of magical contracts unless you do choose to submit.
Battlefield Communications(Hyrule Warriors - 100CP) - Everyone tends to gloss over how they can have conversations from two or more sides of the battlefield. Perhaps it's just magic, but either way it's damn useful.
With this perk you can now establish short range communications across the area between yourself and allies. With this, you can talk to them as if they were right beside you and get constant status reports as they besiege a keep while you fight in the trenches.
In addition to basic conversation, you and others connected by this perk's communications will also be able to tell the basic status of the others connected, allowing you to march to their aid even if they don't speak up for themselves.
Spoiler: Author's Notes
A bit of insight and knowledge on what the rest of Brockton Bay has been up to, offscreen while Odell licks his wounds and adjusts to greater power yet. As always, scream your complaints and criticisms, and thanks for reading. This chapter is also where I caught up on the power rolls that had been built up but not properly gotten to in edits of the other chapters before their publication. So if it seems like there's a lot of rolls for that reason, well, you know why.
Moving forward there's going to be a 2k wordcount for 100CP limit, as an adjustment to the power scaling of the story.
Chapter 8
Daddycool101 said:
Btw, can you get an exaltation from exalted?
No, because while I fucking love Exalted, the power scaling would be busted. Now, can he roll Gnosis from Mage? Yes.
Crese1947 said:
What exactly makes this fic NSFW? I know Sufficient Velocity doesn't allow sexual stuff, so since you said you won't be changing much I can't see that happening, and I'm pretty it doesn't allow for vivid descriptions of gore either
Well, there may be some side stories that go into smut. There'll definitely be more graphic violence, he just hasn't had any reason to come up against anyone that uses that sort of thing. Given his next targets are going to be the Empire, Odell will certainly have to deal with it sooner rather than later. I won't lie and say that the story being here for viewership wasn't a drive too, though. That's just a realpolitik of the site, my guy, and there's plenty of stories I can think of in this category that don't involve any explicit smut, though plenty of graphic action. Which is probably where I'll fall.
Kris-71854 said:
I'd like a few more school scenes. It was rather interesting at first, but now he has sort of tuned that part of his life out of the POV. Then again he was socializing a bit more with Greg and Sparky. Other than that and studying, what can he really do at school? He'd likely avoid Taylor for various reasons. She'd bring drama.
School is hard to write, but I've had some thoughts for how to handle a chapter that takes place there. I think I have a way for him to interact with Taylor and it not be awkward at all, but I'm still working around that concept. Thanks for enjoying the story so far, though!
Pavalos said:
Dig it. Thanks for the chapter. Love the story.
I love and appreciate the support, and thank you for reading so far!
The end of March was looking to be pretty exciting, at least on my end. Inside of me, the Grimoire decided to just go wild when it came to dumping some new abilities onto me, but I wasn't all that worked up or upset about it in the end. There wasn't much point talking about what I rejected. A death curse contingent on me dying, a magical girl stick that had some weird abilities but was too pricey, stuff like that.
None of it was say, bad. Well, besides the death curse that was offered. Most of it wasn't just stuff I thought I'd needed.
Thankfully, I did get some good results.
Highborn would have been more useful to me earlier on, but I wouldn't begrudge the Grimoire for handing it to me now. Having a High Elf internal physiology made me hardier against diseases, so I was fairly sure that I didn't have to worry about catching the flu anymore. And that expanded magicka pool, with regeneration tacked alongside it, made it so I could practice Elder Scrolls spells with greater ease than ever before.
Creating and transferring magical energy from my circuits to power those spells could be worse, but it was an awkward process still, and having multiple pools of disparate energies to work with just made me feel better in general. That was the peace of mind that Highborn bought me. If that was the only thing that slotted into me, I would have been more than happy to just leave it there. Then the Grimoire molly whopped me with a perk I had not been expecting in the slightest but did not reject.
Combat Cyborg.
Lyrical Nanoha is an interesting case of a setting I'm more familiar with by the fanfiction and crossovers that were connected to it or used its magic system than the actual base property. That meant when Combat Cyborg came up I wasn't entirely thrown for a loop as to what it did, or what the result would have been. One moment I was mostly a normal human male.
When I accepted, that stopped being the case.
The experience of having my entire musculoskeletal structure replaced didn't hurt, so much as it ached. It happened so fast that I barely understood that a process had even taken place. Instead, when it was finished it felt like my old body had been substituted with a version that was more efficient by several orders of magnitude. Like going from a gas-guzzling SUV to the most fuel-efficient sports car you could imagine.
Having this body opened me up to Lyrical Nanoha magic, but I didn't have the faintest clue where to begin with that. I had a Linker Core, which was a sort of metaphysical organ inside of my body now, as well as having mana channels on top of that. My Linker Core and Magic Circuits were doing… something… inside of me, but I didn't have enough magical experience to recognize what insanity was going on with my soul. Let alone how my circuits interacted with the mana channels in my limbs.
Physically, I was looking like I'd lost a good deal of my fat, or at least been turned into a leaner version of myself. My skin had cleared up from whatever teenage blackheads and acne I'd been building, and everything about me physically felt like it had been airbrushed to a higher standard. Hell, I even had abs now, faintly, which was a bit of a pleasant surprise. Calling me overweight anymore wouldn't be correct, not when I was just tall lean muscle now.
Rio immediately noticed a difference, though I was pretty sure that other people unfamiliar with me wouldn't notice anything awry right away. Maybe they'd think I'd been losing pounds or something. It pretty much meant I wasn't going to stop wearing baggy clothing anytime soon, in order to mask the change as long as possible.
Just another thing for me to add to my list of things to be paranoid about.
I'm not sure how my cybernetics would work with Evolution's ability to allow me theoretically infinite gains. Then again, I'm not sure how implants were supposed to grow back as it was, but the perk seemed pretty self-assured that they would. I wouldn't question it until it became a hindrance to me.
I… wasn't sure whether or not I had an Inherent Skill or not, too. In theory, I was supposed to have one, as a combat cyborg, but I hadn't noticed anything. Maybe I'd test for it later on, or it was something that wasn't immediately obvious as a passive effect.
Moving on was another ability I'd been very excited to accept, if only because it was a weight off my back.
I'd thought No Strings On Me was just a part of a basic immunity in terms of magic, but no, this affected all relevant parahuman Master powers the same. Shard-based attempts to screw with my mind were given the middle finger in the sort of blanket protections that ensured I wasn't going to end up a Ziz-bomb. That alone was extremely worth the given cost, and the way my internal charge had plummeted.
There might be effects so powerful and esoteric that they could overwhelm this protection, and chances were I'd still double up with multiple perks just in case. But for the moment I could rest assured that my mind would be completely free. There was also the fact that this opened up some of the more… potentially mind-altering perks. If I didn't have to worry about the given magics changing my mind, I could use some of them freely.
Lastly was Battlefield Communication. That just synchronized extremely well with Wolf Pack, in that it allowed me a tactical network with a battlefield range, and a solid way to see the health of those in my network. The distance on it was such that I could talk to Rio with relative ease, though I knew it was still taking him some time to get used to the new mental dialogue.
Altogether, I was very happy with the gains, but I was somewhat dissatisfied with the way the Grimoire had slowed down a more sluggish crawl than ever before. Then again I was just likely being a little too greedy.
Currently, I was flying over to the PRT HQ on the coast to get that power testing I'd promised myself out of the way. The scheduled thing was just the healing, and I imagined they'd probably get Panacea to come with the notion that she wouldn't be the only effective healing cape in the Bay anymore. And while I was there, I might as well bring up Battlefield Communication, because I didn't want to use it in the middle of a fight and freak people out.
PRT ENE Headquarters was an impressive-looking building, situated right on Lord Street, and not that far from Arcadia High. There was a helipad on the roof, the letters of the agency emblazoned against the side of the building, as well as other attachments that I could see. A parking garage, and if I had to guess correctly from my memory of wikis and Canon, a small hospital.
I landed in front of the building with little fanfare, though in recent days after reading PHO posts and getting flamed by Rio, I was looking towards getting a new costume. If the Grimoire was being stingy in handing out one of the cool armors to me, I was just going to have to get cracking on making something myself.
Walking through the front doors with the most casual stride I could manage, I went up to the receptionist's desk, looking around all the while. I could see the interior of the lobby just fine, and also the officers standing guard inside. My new life in Earth-Bet hadn't prepared for how kitschy some of it felt though.
There was a gift shop for god's sake! You could see oodles of Protectorate and Wards merchandise being proudly and blatantly sold, which was the sort of weird reminder to me that superheroes had become more than just peacekeepers, but marketed figures. I wonder if the Heroes bragged about who sold the most merchandise.
Waving calmly at the front desk, I made sure they could not have any fault for being twitchy. "Hey there! I'm Folklord, here for my power testing appointment?"
While my costume wasn't in the best of conditions, they'd been told to expect me at some point that day. She wasn't too surprised by my appearance and gave me a bright smile in return. "Sure thing! We were expecting you. Would you be a dear and wait a moment for your guide to come and get you?"
"I don't mind waiting, no."
I was a little curious as to who'd be sent down to meet with me, especially given the Wards HQ was on the premises. Though I had no doubt there'd be a Protectorate member at the very least. Given who came down a few minutes later, I wasn't entirely wrong in that presumption.
Velocity was recognizable enough, but I was a little surprised to see Gallant walking alongside him in his Tinkertech armor. If I remember correctly, he was a Cauldron Cape and not a Tinker, but someone who used that to mask the fact that his Blaster and Thinker rating was independent of it. That, and his ability to read emotions would help the PRT undoubtedly gather more information on me.
Well played.
However, I would probably be far more emotionally balanced than your average Cape. At least, that was what I was presuming just from my lack of a trigger event. Pondering on all that, the Grimoire finally tossed me something new and shiny, which was accepted without hesitation.
Spoiler: Possessive Predator(200CP)
Possessive Predator(Ib - 200CP) - Many of Guertena's creations were imbued with a sense of aggressive possessiveness, perfect for hunting down trespassers and thieves. You gained enhanced senses for tracking people, and your ability to track specific targets increases the more you fixate yourself on them. Also, with enough desire to catch your prey, you can find the determination to get past any obstacles in your way, and even have the strength to break through walls to reach your quarry. You additionally gain awareness of intruders in your territory. Most of all, as an artwork may very well lack eyes, ears, head, or nose, you do not need your regular senses to use this tracking ability.
Between this and my reading up on the basics of how to do Hypnosis, I was probably ready to handle Coil. No putting it off any longer when I could track him down now, and then Master him into compliance when I did. A problem for later in the week for me to solve.
"Folklord, right?" Gallant greeted, waving and offering a hand as he approached. "It's a pleasure to meet you. I've heard you've done some good work, taking in Mush."
I shook his hand back, giving the teen a nod. "It's nice to meet you as well. I take it you'll be my guides around for the duration of the power testing?"
"That'll be right," Velocity confirmed. "And we're only testing your healing capability, correct? We're more than happy to help you figure out the ins and outs of anything else you can do, and help you learn how to use them safely."
Yes, so you can make a dossier on my capabilities.
I tamped down on my paranoia before I let it get out of control, and merely gave him a nod in return. "I would like to have something else tested while we're here if you're amenable to a change. I've got a bit of a Thinker ability that connects with other people, and gives us a sort… tactical network?" Trying to explain it delicately, and tiptoe around anything that could remotely land me a Master designation, was a balancing act in and of itself.
Diving into further explanation, I gave it a bit more semantics. "It allows everyone on the 'network' that I designate to communicate with each other and get a rough feeling for how everyone's health is. You'd be able to tell if someone's wounded or not, stuff like that."
"Huh." Gallant rubbed at his chin, sort of a useless gesture given his armor. "I mean, I guess I'd be the best possible person to test that…?"
"We'll have to make a call or two," Velocity interjected, looking between the two of us. "But I can't see a reason why we wouldn't be able to evaluate it here, to see if it's acceptable out in the field. Just in case there's any side effects you don't know about."
That was a load off my back. "Also, ah, there's one more thing before we go into any metal detectors. My entire skeleton is made of metal, so… be aware of that?"
The two of them stared at me for a lot longer after that, and while I couldn't exactly tell precisely what they were thinking, I could tell that it was probably a bit of a gawk. Not that they could be blamed for that reaction. Staring was a very fair reaction to someone telling you that they were partially made of metal.
"How did you… figure that one out?" Velocity asked, almost dreading the answer.
Softly, my shoulders shrugged. "I did a little experimenting of my own. They're… roughly where they're supposed to be, I think? I'm fine beyond that, as far as I can tell anyway." They'd figure out it was technology the moment I walked through the metal detectors and they scanned me, but that didn't mean I had to help them to figure out what they were looking at.
"Right." The red-suited hero nodded, clearing his throat. "Just this way, and I'll let the troopers guarding the checkpoint know about your… peculiarities."
With that, there was little fanfare about going inside. The trooper manning the metal detector gave me what had to be a very cautious and bemused look when I walked past the x-ray machine and made it ring loudly, but after a patdown, they let me further into the building. What were they gonna do, confiscate my skeleton?
My ratings were probably going to get some adjustments in the future whenever they got a good look at those scans, though.
One short elevator ride later, we were on a floor of the building that was a bit more designated for scientific endeavors, at least from what little I could see of it. What had to be some kind of Brute testing area, with a stand that seemed to be designed for punching, while in a corner a sizable hydraulic press that I suspected was meant to test the durability and weight-lifting capabilities of a given Brute, to get a measure of how much they could lift.
Then there were more esoteric pieces of equipment that I only distantly recognized through my time in aircraft maintenance. Some sort of spectrographic analysis device, and stranger things besides, that'd likely be turned onto me whenever I began my healing in earnest. Off into what I suspected was the biomedical portion of the floor, I could feel my new Thinker power fumbling around as it confirmed the presence of various animal species as I queried Possessive Predator.
A rat, a dog, and other animals typical of medical testing before preliminary human trials. No reason not to run through the gamut before putting me through any actual testing with a human being.
As the three of us entered proper, I could see a lot of the scientists looking at our entrance. Personally, not sure if I cared for how much they looked at me like I was a particularly juicy steak, or an interesting new puzzle to crack open, but I guessed that was part and parcel of being a parahuman researcher. You didn't go into the field if you held no desire to study parahumans and what made them tick, or didn't want to interact with them at all. Each Cape was a functional one-of-a-kind case study of how powers could express themselves, unique in almost every way even from those superficially similar to them.
I almost missed the robed girl near the given scientists entirely, because my attention was mostly on the environment around me. Almost.
Amy Dallon was one of the most unassuming people I'd ever seen in my entire life, with her sole standout characteristic being an absurd amount of freckles on her face. Standing there, she scrutinized me with the sort of uncomfortable stare of someone assessing me, and not unfairly so. If I was as good of a healer as I'd made myself out to be to Velocity, then soon Brockton Bay could have another substantial healer in the roster of Heroes. The vast majority of cities didn't even have one.
Still, I tried not to let myself get distracted by what I knew of her future, and what she might do. Canon and Fanon led was something that'd inevitably lead me astray if I stayed married to whatever notions I had of her from it. This was a living, breathing person, not a character, and while Amy had her issues… I don't think she was born to be irrevocably evil.
If anything, my existence would butterfly away the worst things that'd led her onto her downward spiral. If I took care of Coil before he could have the Undersiders do their bank robbery, she'd never meet Tattletale, which wouldn't set her on the path for a new and specific kind of neuroses.
"Gallant," she greeted the Ward with a nod of her head, not sounding excited or angry to see him, but a sort of cool ambivalence before she repeated the nod towards the Protectorate member. "Velocity."
"Good to see you, Panacea," Gallant strode forward, and if he was uncomfortable or even aware of her emotions, he didn't show it. "I trust we didn't leave you waiting too long? This is Folklord." He gestured back to me, and I could feel her eyes turn back my way without really looking at her.
Up close and personal, Possessive Predator gave me bonkers proprioception of what the people around me were doing, at least when I focused on them. There was a way to couple this into my fighting style, that much I knew for sure, but I wasn't sure how exactly. More testing would help with that. Still, I shifted that off so I wasn't as distracted by it for this conversation.
Taking a step forward, I offered a gloved hand toward Panacea for a handshake. Taking painstaking care to wear gloves was a no-brainer for this meeting, partially to even remove the possibility of the 'Le-biology-obsessed-Panacea' that was oh so common in Fanon, and mostly because I didn't want to give anyone more information on my capabilities. Each perk I got that altered my physiology fundamentally changed me from being anything resembling baseline Human, for better or worse.
"It's a pleasure to meet the most hardworking Cape in the city. Here's to hoping the testing goes smoothly."
I genuinely meant it too, even if I'm not sure if Panacea bought my words as she reached out to shake my hand. "Right…" Glancing over at one of the scientists, she released my hand. "What's first in evaluating his power?"
One of their numbers piped in at that point. "We've got an array of injured animals. You said to Velocity you can't cure sicknesses yet?"
"No, but I'm working on it," I contextualized. "Not sure if I'll ever be able to do in-depth biological alterations, so I might not be so hot with genetic conditions, and regrowing body parts is a bit of a coin toss." Maybe if I became an expert in Restoration magic, but even at my current level, there was a lot of good I could do with my healing.
The scientist who'd interjected, a tanned man with salt and pepper black hair, and a tiny bit of a gut, nodded at that. "Understandable. Parahuman healing is uncommon, or a byproduct of other powers, so even being able to handle wounds promptly is impressive. A lot of what we're going to be doing is testing the general speed and depth of your healing, to get a feeling for what it can handle."
The group of us was led to the holding cages for the animal test subjects. First among them was what had to be a rat with what was probably a broken arm or something like that. Whether they broke it, or it was already injured by itself, I didn't know. "Feel free to heal when ready."
Nodding their way, I brought a hand up and began the process of casting Healing Hands. While there were more efficient spells at the Journeyman level, this spell alone was good enough for my purposes. Directing the magical energies of my substantial magicka pool, I focused it on the rat while Panacea had a finger placed on the animal as well. All the while, its physical damage, wear and tear, scar tissue, etc, was being gradually wiped away by the Restoration spell. By the time we were finished, the rat looked better than ever, squeaking softly as it ran circles around its holding container.
"Remarkably swift. Any thoughts or changes in the rat, Panacea?" Salt and Pepper inquired, looking over at the Cape.
She seemed… a little out of it. Hard to tell with the way her face scrunched up whenever I started healing the rat. "I'm not entirely sure. Physiologically there was no real change or upset to the baseline, that much I can say definitively. The confusing thing is that whatever Folklord is doing, he's not… using the body's biomass to heal, like I do. I can't see the energy he's using inside the body, but I can see the results of it filling in the gaps, repairing and revitalizing every cell, just by the aftermath of wherever it goes."
"So, is it tentatively safe for further testing?"
"Yes," she confirmed. "I'd like to get more detail on how his energy source interacts with cells more, but I'd say it's safe for the other animals."
With that tentative seal of approval, we were off to the races. Anything else they brought out, ranging from a pet iguana with a freshly detached tail, to a rescue parrot with a broken wing, and a dog with a laceration rescued from a dog fighting ring. Whatever they brought forth, I was able to safely heal, and with little signs of the damage ever occurring at all, save for scars when applicable.
This was informative for me as well, since how often would I have someone like Panacea going into in-depth detail about what my magic did to a living body on the cellular level? I wasn't able to regrow limbs or do much more than heal bone, but it was still useful all the same for me to know what was going on at the tiniest levels.
From what we could generally tell, my 'exotic energy source' was functionally less of a directed effect and more of a blunt repair solution. It healed everything that it could, from microfractures in the skeleton to muscle damage, including wear and tear from general activity. It was causing cellular regeneration wholesale, and Panacea's best guess as to how it did so was that it was facilitating the creation of new biomass when needed by transmuting itself into more of the specific living thing that was being healed.
"Your power is a little hard for me to read in action," she admitted, even if there was something of a more interested gleam in her eye than there'd been at the beginning of this whole affair. "It's not biological in any respect, made especially clear when you're doing that glowy thing with your hands. But when you touch it to a living creature, it seems to be transmuting itself into what the creature needs to be whole. How it knows to do so, or what to fix, is totally up in the air, since you're not directing that part, right?"
"Nope," I confirmed. "I trigger it, and it goes to where it needs to. At least, that's what I'm presuming."
"My best guess is that it's interfacing with the genetics of whatever you're healing." She paused, glancing down at the formerly pitbull I'd just healed, who was sitting and wagging its tail happily in its oversized carrier. "Genes carry the rough 'blueprints' so to speak, of how organisms are meant to be put together, so that would make sense more than anything else."
Giving a soft hum, I crossed my arms in front of my chest. "That checks out. I have to put my energy into a different configuration when I want to heal myself, as opposed to someone else, so it's probably got something to do with that."
Talking powers like this was fun, which was probably why the Grimoire tossed me something new.
Spoiler: Dust Refinery(100CP)
Dust Refinery(Endless Legend - 100CP) - Able to infuse Dust with new life, the Refinery is the staple of Dust Enchantment. While Dust-infused iron is common, it pales compared to the Dust enchantments this refinery allows. Allows for the crafting of Foci and magic rings, talismans, insignias, and tomes. Comes with a small supply of dust that replenishes weekly.
Okay. Stay calm.
Panacea talked on and on about biology, and what the possibilities of my power interfacing with her healing capabilities could mean for hard-to-cure illnesses and diseases. I, on the other hand, was doing my best not to freak out and pump my fist into the air from my latest perk. Dust Refinery made me a full-fledged Tinker in truth, and while the tiny amount of Dust I felt being held in reserve to be deployed at my say-so wasn't a lot… it was better than nothing.
At least until I got some of the perks that allowed me to refine more Dust from the environment. Then I could begin some more ambitious projects from the Grimoire.
The smithing knowledge it came with was a bit… rudimentary and selective like an actual Tinker's creations, but it also came with an actionable smorgasbord of enchanting knowledge and the means to do it. That in and of itself was invaluable, and I'd be able to make certain enchantments all day, every day. Iron, titanium, and palladium variants of items were excellent examples. Dust rings could come when I had a way to gather Dust better, or could figure out how to make the disincorporated smart swarm follow my bidding.
Amy was still talking though, which made me feel a little bad when I interrupted her. "With all that said, would you say we're good to move onto human testing trials?"
"Huh?" She blinked, seemingly having been taken out of whatever rant she'd been on. "Oh, I can't foresee any problems given what I've picked up so far. If there's anything unsafe going on, it's happening at a level of manipulation my powers can't see."
Given the truth of what she could do, I doubted that was happening at all. Velocity and Gallant seemed happy enough with that endorsement, as did the scientists who performed the cursory investigations of all the anima I'd healed up to this point. Now it was time to deal with getting some actual hands-on healing with people. While it wasn't a replacement for actual first aid, my rate of magicka regeneration meant it was unlikely that I'd be without the means to help people in the future regardless of what situation I found myself in.
First up was a squaddie with a broken arm, who I healed with relatively little fanfare. The x-ray analysis came back with the break being entirely healed, and so there was a happy trooper getting out of that cast after Panacea vetted the treatment. Many of the scientists had been somewhat chagrined that their equipment continually failed to pick up any serious readings from my 'exotic energy' especially when it had such a visible effect.
But parahuman powers were famously mysterious, and there was no kind of obvious radiation being exhibited from me, the light show, or my healed patients the entire time, so they were tentatively calling everything acceptable. That was a bit of a relief for me too. I'd been worried that there was possibly some aspect of the magick spells that were inimical to Earth-Bet life, but it seemed as if the Grimoire wasn't going to screw me over there.
More humans came after that. One was a police officer who'd gotten shot during a gang dispute some days prior, with the wound being exceedingly fresh. In a few moments, it vanished like it'd never been there at all. Someone with muscular dystrophy was brought forward to see if my power could do anything there, but unfortunately, it didn't prove so useful beyond ameliorating the worst of the damage to his body.
That was pretty much the sole case that Panacea had to step in, and 'heal' his body. Or at least, that's what everyone would go on assuming, even if I knew she was likely shifting things around on the genetic level to cure the condition wholesale. I wonder if Restoration was capable of that sort of thing at its highest levels. Maybe several different types of healing magic compounded could do the trick…
After what was hours of testing though, it began to come to a close as the PRT could find no particular fault with my brand of healing. If anything, the limitations I had seemed to reassure them more than anything else. If it had been healing at no cost, completely effective, I think they might have dug a bit deeper. Panacea was the exception, not the rule, and even she didn't do brains. More by choice than lack of ability, even if that argument was also a can of worms in and of itself.
"I'd say if there's nothing else, your power has my seal of approval," Panacea sighed, giving me a small smile. "It'll be nice to have more parahuman assistance in the hospitals now too."
Ah. She was presuming that I was going to be healing for free like she did, and while I could close my mouth and nod along… that would be the cowardly way of avoiding conflict. Better to just be upfront about my plans here and now, rather than stringing her along. "Actually… I planned on working as something of a healer for hire, once I got some corporate stuff worked out."
In an instant, I could see the moment when her expression flickered through incredulity, to something more akin to indignant anger. "What? You've got this amazing ability to heal, even faster than me, and you're going to… just charge people for it? Don't you feel an obligation to help people as a Hero?"
"Sure," I nodded. "Just not for free. You can be a good person and get a nice paycheck for it. Those aren't two mutually exclusive things, Panacea."
That got a downright menacing scowl out of the girl. "Being a Hero and doing the right thing should be reward enough, shouldn't it? Is getting paid so important to you that you'd charge for it?"
I pointedly avoided looking at Velocity and Gallant at that moment, who suddenly found things a lot more interesting to look at elsewhere in the lab as this devolved into an argument.
New Wave did a few things right with the spirit behind its movement, but its direction was faulty from the outset. Being Heroes, while also maintaining more mundane, domestic jobs was a nice thought… but it fundamentally ensured that they were split between the two fields.
Whereas if they'd taken advantage of their earlier success, they wouldn't have to rely on donations but instead be at the helm of a more significantly profitable corporate endeavor to back up their ambitions. That might just be the brutally pragmatic part of me speaking from the advantage of hindsight, which was unfair to them. I wasn't there in the early days of the movement, high off their successes.
"Listen, Panacea, everyone gets paid. The Protectorate gets paid, big salaries if they're a Hero if that's very marketable and powerful. When it comes to the Wards, they get money shoved into a stipend account for them. And New Wave accepts donations, basically getting paid but with more steps."
I looked her dead in the eyes at this, my furrowed brow visible as I pressed my point. "It's not like I'm going to be charging people an arm and a leg. Honestly, I'll still be significantly cheaper than any healthcare in the city when it comes to healing damage, and eventually diseases."
That wasn't hyperbole either. Healthcare in my world was already bad enough in the U.S. let alone how much things had changed on Earth-Bet. If I charged one thousand dollars for a total healing workup, including diseases when I got the ability for it, there'd be tons of people that would take that offer from Brockton Bay and beyond. I was also intending to offer free healthcare to the best of my ability to the corporation I planned on setting up, or at least the core portion of it.
"Heroism without the means to enact real, systemic change is doomed to always be temporary," I continued. "You can throw big-time Villains in jail, Birdcage them, but if you don't tackle the root causes that lead to gangs being a viable alternative to legal work, you'll only perpetuate the cycle. That's why I want the money. To tackle those changes."
I wouldn't say she seemed convinced, not with the stubborn set of her jaw, but she did seem to be thinking about the general concept more. "… I'm not sure how much I can trust that. But I think I can understand why you'd think it."
"Good. Besides, it's not like I'll never volunteer at a hospital, especially during emergencies, or not be healing people when I'm on patrol and have permission." I'd be the first person to admit though, that healing was a means to an end for me, and the moment I got the ability to source it out to someone or something else I would.
It was at that point that Gallant had decided to interject. "I think if Panacea's good to endorse your healing, the PRT will likely do the same after some long-form tests and evaluations, to ensure that there are no issues we've missed." Which was smart, even if I knew there wouldn't be. "Are you ready to test out that Thinker power of yours?"
I nodded. "It should be pretty simple. You just sort of have to…" Battlefield Communication was a little weird. I sort of reached out and prodded his… mind. Sapience? Soul? Legend of Zelda magic is the definition of soft magic, so it's not very well defined, but that wasn't a problem for me. Though Gallant seemed to twitch before I felt the connection between us bloom into a full link.
"Oooookay. This is a little odd, but, uh…" Gallant tilted his head, glancing over at Velocity. "I'm not feeling particularly different, one way or another."
Velocity glanced my way, before jerking a thumb back at Gallant. "Can you try to command him to do something?"
"Jump up and down on one leg." I knew it wouldn't do anything, but no one was going to take my word for it. Stuff like this was objectively why I avoided even using the spells I knew that were somewhat close to Human Master abilities. Getting this sort of attention was the worst kind of thing, but I had to let them vet this ability before I used it in a crisis.
Thankfully, Gallant didn't feel any need to jump up and down on one leg. "We should probably test the range capabilities of this, too."
Over the next thirty minutes, we did some more comprehensive power testing with Battlefield Communication, which wasn't all that strange. Beyond me just permitting the PRT to test one of my powers and probably confirm whatever Trump rating they gave me, they wanted to test out its safety for the general public as well. On every given metric, even with Panacea offering to test whether or not there were any changes to their body, nothing popped out to them. They were quite interested in the range it shared though, and how secretive it could be, but that was pretty much everything that came from the testing.
"Well, thank you for bearing with us through all of that, Folklore," Velocity responded, as the testing began to wrap up. "And a thank you as well, Panacea. Your approval on all this stuff helps out immensely."
That made the medic give a little shrug. "Honestly, it wasn't that bad. Though Vicky's going to be moody that she missed out on all this power testing."
Oh yeah, Glory Girl was a bit more of a power nerd in Ward, wasn't she? I only know the broad strokes of what happened in Ward, and honestly, I fully planned on dodging most of the events that happened in it. The big crisis was the Shard network coming down, but that was only an issue if you couldn't stabilize it with plenty of notice at the death of Scion. No idea if I'd be able to make a system of managing them better than the current one, but I don't think I could make things any worse.
Distantly, the Grimoire tossed me something that, while unexpected, was not unwelcome. As it connected, I almost instantly accepted. Building up my charge had some benefits, as it meant I could take incredible perks as they came, rather than having to reject them.
Spoiler: Swordsman Scrolls(200CP)
Swordsman Scrolls(Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks - 200CP) - You'd think that these would be only mildly useful to an engineer due to them being, you know, and engineer, but you've managed to get your hands on them anyways. These two scrolls detail the usages of two sword techniques that are incredibly hard to find teachers for. The first is sword beams, the ability to shoot 'cutting wind' type attacks from the edge of your blade. Sadly, an ordinary blade won't be enough - there needs to be a level of magic to it in order to power the beam. The second scroll details the great spin attack, a much easier technique to use. Additionally, you can rewrite these scrolls, turning them into two techniques of your own choosing. But, why mess with the classics?
Added to the metaphysical weight of the Dust awaiting to be deployed were two scrolls. I had no idea what precisely the limitations were on them, but learning and reading both would be child's play for me. More important was what I suspected, and that was either could be taught to people… or modified, and the scrolls refitted for abilities I could also go on to teach people. Even if they were only weapon techniques and attacks, would make this invaluable.
It was at this point that I felt the actual burning need to get the hell out of here. Anticipation more or less, excitement, the desire to go and explore some of these new abilities, and make plans for them in turn. "If there's nothing else you guys need from me…?"
"No, but if you have a number or an email we could use to get some of these long-term results back to you?" Velocity trailed off.
I gave him a little nod. "Yep. Haven't gotten around to getting the verified Cape handle on PHO yet, but you can send em' to OnceUponATime."
There was another moment as I could feel all three of the Heroes staring at me for my stupidly cheesy name. No matter. They'd all realize how utterly genius it was whenever I started pulling out some insane fairytale magic on whatever threats came my way. And then they'd all rue the day they made fun of my shenanigans.
"I've got a fairytale schtick going on," I explained, trying to get ahead of the dubious looks that Amy was sending me. "It'll make more sense when my costume comes together."
"… Okay, sure," Panacea nodded, with the sort of deliberateness that told me that she in no way believed me. However, I wouldn't be the first or last guy with a silly name. Chris called himself Kid Win for god's sake. "I'm gonna go text my sister to pick me up, but it was nice to meet you. I'll probably be messaging you on PHO about hospital visits too, so expect that eventually."
Hmm. Now I had to deal with getting badgered to heal people by Panacea. Whatever, as long as it didn't dig into my business in the future, showing up every so often to help out wouldn't hurt. "Sounds good to me."
After that, we pretty much wrapped things up. I got the feeling that Velocity and Gallant really wanted to press the case for me joining the Wards, but I respected the restraint it took for them not to bring up the topic. After all, they'd already tried to sell me two times, and I hadn't been the most receptive. If the fundamental system was different I probably wouldn't have been so leery, but as it was now I just didn't need them as much as they needed me.
If you had a stock that would appreciate in value, selling it cheaply was not in your best interests.
Once word got out that my healing was not only safe and endorsed by the PRT, I'd be able to market it with increasing efficiency. That, and it'd give the authorities a relatively vested interest to not only keep me alive but maybe overlook certain powers I displayed that were something of a public relations nightmare.
Saying my goodbyes to the Capes in the lobby, I shifted into a raven once more and headed for home.
Possessive Predator meant that the relatively lax tempo I'd taken concerning Coil was no longer an option for me. Tomorrow I planned to completely skip school, and go on the offensive. For better or worse, I could take out one of the most corrosive, toxic elements in this city, cutting off the head of the snake and ensuring many of the problems he was directly involved with facilitating were removed.
Dinah's kidnapping, the invitation of the Travelers to the city, his control over the Undersiders, all of that. Handing over the reins of that organization to Lisa had me a little leery, but I couldn't untangle the situation without her. And then there was the elephant in the room beyond that.
Mastering him was something I could live with. The real question was whether or not I had it in myself to put him in the ground after the fact. Letting him walk away from whatever we did to him alive was the height of foolishness. Logically, I knew that. But anytime I put any thoughts towards it, towards that premeditated murder, I just….
I didn't know if I had that cold-bloodedness in me. That was what stuck with me as I took off into the sky, and soared over the Bay.
Spoiler: Author's Note
This was the start of the 2k per 100CP shift, and I think I liked it more than the other style. There wasn't a ton that happened in this chapter, but mostly
Spoiler: Accepted Perks
Possessive Predator(Ib - 200CP) - Many of Guertena's creations were imbued with a sense of aggressive possessiveness, perfect for hunting down trespassers and thieves. You gained enhanced senses for tracking people, and your ability to track specific targets increases the more you fixate yourself on them. Also, with enough desire to catch your prey, you can find the determination to get past any obstacles in your way, and even have the strength to break through walls to reach your quarry. You additionally gain awareness of intruders in your territory. Most of all, as an artwork may very well lack eyes, ears, head, or nose, you do not need your regular senses to use this tracking ability.
Dust Refinery(Endless Legend - 100CP) - Able to infuse Dust with new life, the Refinery is the staple of Dust Enchantment. While Dust-infused iron is common, it pales compared to the Dust enchantments this refinery allows. Allows for the crafting of Foci and magic rings, talismans, insignias, and tomes. Comes with a small supply of dust that replenishes weekly.
Swordsman Scrolls(Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks - 200CP) - You'd think that these would be only mildly useful to an engineer due to them being, you know, and engineer, but you've managed to get your hands on them anyways. These two scrolls detail the usages of two sword techniques that are incredibly hard to find teachers for. The first is sword beams, the ability to shoot 'cutting wind' type attacks from the edge of your blade. Sadly, an ordinary blade won't be enough - there needs to be a level of magic to it in order to power the beam. The second scroll details the great spin attack, a much easier technique to use. Additionally, you can rewrite these scrolls, turning them into two techniques of your own choosing. But, why mess with the classics?
Chapter 9
March 24th, 2011
Even in my old life, I had a lot of trouble separating canon facts and fanon 'facts'. Coil's power was one of the most chaotic examples of this, basically occupying the same place King Crimson did in my head. It just worked, and beyond a few times where it interested me, I'd never really investigated the power all that in-depth.
That being said, I knew enough to make a plan of attack.
From Coil's perspective, his power allowed him to split timelines, and do whatever he liked in both. Then he could collapse whichever was inopportune, and continue on his merry way. However, the sheer energy draw required to even create an entirely separate timeline should have clued in the Thinker that wasn't what was going on.
In reality, he had a very strange form of precognition, that simulated the two possible timelines with immense amounts of specificity, and then predicted which one the man would keep. His power was mastering him, and it was pretty solid, but that wasn't to say it was faultless.
Precognitives could goof with his abilities, you could force him to commit to a change, and there were blindspots every Thinker had built-in by their Shards. Entities, Endbringers, Eidolon, trigger events, whatever. And theoretically, if you could Master him in one timeline, you could force him to keep whatever one you caught him in.
Possessive Predator turned me into something of a pericognitive, in that the perk fed me information but it wasn't the precognition that you'd need to entirely spoof with his ability. So I knew where he would be, roughly, with greater certainty the closer I got to the man. My plan was relatively simple, knowing all that.
After I'd left the PRT building I'd gone shopping for some disposable dark clothing goggles, a balaclava, and an owl feather I'd gotten from some occult shop. After class let out, I was going to all but run home, get changed, and then go on the hunt.
I made a dedication to myself on the night I'd gone in for power testing that I was going to confront Coil at 9 pm exactly in two days, to the best of my ability. An ironclad decision that should be immutable in both of his timelines, for me to go on the attack after stalking the Villain.
This plan had some serious holes in it. It was predicated on me getting past his security in both timelines while also withholding enough of my powerset to not be identifiable if things got out. My Hypnosis was perhaps not up to top form, though I was fairly confident I wasn't weaker than Waver Velvet.
This plan had so many ifs, buts, maybes, that it just made me want to call the whole thing off and wait till I had more prepared to deal with Coil.
But that was the quitter side of me talking. I knew if I did that, I'd keep putting this off, and that wasn't an option anymore. Not with where we were in the timeline
Over the next month, Coil was going to end up inadvertently giving Tattletale the means to fuck up Amy's entire tenuous psychology, kidnap Dinah to turn her into a drug-addicted Thinker slave, bring the Travelers into the city, and then in the month after that? He'd expose the identities of the Empire Eighty-Eight, which was a whole can of worms in and of itself.
No, I had no intention of giving him the chance to set a trainwreck of events in motion, nor did I want to allow him any longer to facilitate the heinous crimes he'd been committing beyond the ones the story went into detail about. I had the power to make things happen. It was just a matter of following through.
Here's hoping it didn't blow up in my face.
Fuck my counterpart in whatever timeline that Coil is currently simulating, because this was some bullshit.
I knew there was a chance that Coil would be inside his base when the time came to enact my plan. I'd hoped I'd lucked out and he'd be somewhere more easily accessible, but it was just the roll of the dice he was inside his most secure facility. That complicated matters, but it didn't make them impossible. Just trickier.
While I had time, I workshopped a few plans.
Rats were known to have pretty sharp teeth, so with Possessive Predator I was halfway sure I could burrow or dig myself in enough to get inside of the base proper. Metal might be a little tough, but concrete? Rats could get through weak concrete normally, let alone with magical might behind their teeth.
Amber Wizards could turn themselves into swarms of small animals, like birds or rats. I'd just never done it, but this could be a good reason to flex that set of abilities.
Then there was the route of merely sneaking in with a patrol of returning guards. I didn't like this as much because it was predicated on me putting in a lot more work on reconnaissance, and the longer I actively plotted the more of a chance for something to go wrong. Everything I thought I knew about Canon had been disrupted long ago by my very existence, so acting quicker to make sure my information was the smart move in my eyes.
Lastly was something that put a sour taste in my mouth. I could pretty easily track down one of Coil's mercenary bands and just attempt to Master them into compliance. They wouldn't even remember it, and while it might be a bit tricky to get a group all at once… I was confident enough in my ability to do so.
I just… didn't want to.
Objectively it might even be the smarter option for me. But taking away a person's autonomy and control like that was a slippery slope. I knew myself well enough to know precisely how lazy I was, and how tempting leaning into Master-esque powers would be when they provided such simple solutions to my problems.
But again, it was toxic for your reputation if anyone found out. Not even talking about the slippery slope of relying on Master powers. if you just relied on mind control to solve all your issues, I could see how it'd bleed into using it for smaller and smaller issues. For my part, why even risk the temptation?
As annoying as it was, I was going with my first plan. Time-consuming, and mind-numbing, but ultimately the most straightforward option. Finding a nearby alleyway, I triggered my transformation and felt my consciousness shift. Turning from the singular I to the numerous bodies that were going to make up me, pumping Ghur, magical energy, magicka, into the spell to give it some extra oomph.
And by god, it fucking worked.
I'm not the queen of escalation, so having the sheer flood of information hitting me all at once was nearly debilitating, as over a hundred rats freaked out at once. My mind wasn't split, thank god, but that didn't mean the human mind was meant to see through this many viewpoints. To feel my fur in the cool March air on many bodies, countless claws moving in unison on broken concrete and through garbage.
I clustered myself underneath a dumpster while I got used to the deluge of data, letting my mind settle once more. Feeling breath roll out of countless lungs in concert, moving those rats as one, my wits came back to me. I'm not sure if I'd call this altered consciousness bad, not with Ghur smoothing over the worst of the neural load and making this possible at all.
It just might not be for me.
Anyway, I had a brand new respect for Taylor, because this shit was harder than it looked. I wasn't giving the finest of commands to my swarm body, so much as general rough suggestions for movements and actions. The first of which was ducking through the shadows, as we found an entrance into the sewers.
After that? Simple. We began to dig.
One rat chewing alone might have taken some time. Over a hundred of them, chewing, clawing, empowered with Possessive Predator to dig? We were making some serious progress, slow and steady as it was. I felt the Grimoire fumble for something new at that point, as I dedicated myself to the mind-numbing task of digging.
It was the first level of shapeshifting available to World of Darkness sorcerers, which was… admittedly, a little weak. Not worth the squeeze in my own opinion, not with better transformative options available to me at that point. Rejecting it, I turned my attention back towards the monotonous sound of chewing, as tens of rats chewed through whatever defenses were between me and my target.
Technically this was an Endbringer shelter, but let us be realistic about it. If an Endbringer wanted to get inside a bunker, there wasn't anything anyone could do to dissuade it from breaking past the barriers.
I'd had to re-transform once, which meant I'd been at this for at least an hour until there was a small hole large enough for merely the head of one of the rats to get through. A tiny, tiny gap, that no living creature should have been able to get through. But rats were squirrely little things, and they could push themselves through all sorts of tiny gaps.
Just like that, I was in.
The room my swarm dropped back down into seemed like a storage space of some kind at first glance, until my eyes adjusted again. Then I did my best to grimace in the bodies of rats, as I realized I was inside of a cell. Ugh, as if I needed more reminders of why I was doing this.
Breaking out of my transformed state, I checked my time and saw that things were still on schedule. At 8:47pm, I had about thirteen minutes to get to Coil, presuming that everything was going alright with my timeline counterpart. This deep in the base, with the target of Possessive Predator so close by, I could feel that fixation grow all the stronger.
Which raised the question of whether or not it was time to go loud, or keep quiet.
In the end, I chose quiet-ish, if only because I didn't want to give Thomas any opportunity to trigger any of his failsafe triggers. Instead, I recast the swarm, though albeit at a much smaller amount. The next three walls would not be as quiet as my entrance into the base, but we were beyond the pale for any plan I made at this point.
I took in a deep breath with many bodies, letting some measure of calm settle in. Counting down the seconds, as I nibbled and burrowed at higher speeds than ever before, letting myself delve deeper into the instincts that Possessive Predator gave me. The need to hunt, to track down my quarry against all odds…
Internally, I felt my magic circuits counting down the time for me, as I pierced each barrier in my path.
Wall one, 8:53 pm.
Wall two, 8:56 pm.
Wall three, 8:59 pm.
Contact.When it came to the last wall, I didn't even bother restraining my strength. No, I exploded forth with the force that only a driven huntsman could muster. Exploding forth near the floor of Coil's office, I knew that my notice was immediately noted and noticed. But at this point, it was too late for any skulduggery.
And I was long past my tolerance for subtlety.
"Are those rats?!" One clever mercenary commented, of the three I saw in the room as I came out.
I canceled my transformation and pulled on Apparations Stalk the Night immediately, feeling darkness flood from my body, filling the space with as much power as I was flooding into it. Unlike when I fought Mush, there was no holding back on my end. Not when I needed the inhabitants of this room blind.
Coil, already fumbling to stand up in the seconds since my entrance. The mercenaries were beginning to raise their guns in my direction. I was certainly in danger, but then again, it was unlikely any of them would be belting off shots if it risked shooting their boss, or allies.
So naturally I projected a knife and took advantage of that caution. Glowing golden copies of the weapon erupted from the air around me, before being promptly and unceremoniously shot into all the other men in the room.
It was a little surprising to me that they didn't immediately collapse, though. Weapon Magic had turned into my go-to nonlethal option, but I'd discounted that trained mercs probably didn't have the sort of lackluster will you'd expect from your average Merchant.
Two of them even managed to keep on their feet, even if they were swaying dangerously. Their body armor might have done something to diffuse the attack either, but the mechanics of the soul and how weapon magic precisely attacked it was beyond me. In this instance, with precious seconds to spare, I didn't hesitate to go for a blunter solution.
Honestly, I needed to do more research about how weapon magic interacted with Breaker and Changer bodies, and generally parahumans proper. That way I could avoid a Mush situation again. Instead, I just filled the mooks with spectral knives until they stopped moving.
Alive, I think. But not in any condition to do anything, with the way weapon magic took their willpower away while leaving their bodies intact.
For my part, I didn't see a reason to waste time as I rushed over to Coil's briefly stunned body. Not when he was a perfectly fine victim to be on the ground. The man may have been somewhat in shape, but compared to my Brute powers, he might as well have been a child.
Which made it easy to rip away that mask of his, and expose the terrified eyes of a man deeply shocked with the current situation. Not that I could blame him, given how abruptly I'd bulldozed through the level of security he had presented. They were good, but not so good to be prepared for the amount of out-of-context bullshit I had at my disposal.
"Wait, wait, I can pay yo-" He started, but I could see his alarm kick up to a new level all of a sudden, and his struggle intensified underneath me. "What have you done?!"
Ah, that must be me in the other timeline, huh? The lucky bastard didn't have to bore himself half to death, digging into this stupid base…
Lifting my goggles, I let the darkness recede around us and felt the hum of Hypnosis begin to spin up as I looked into the Thinker's eyes. And my single, resolute command rang forth.
"Obey my orders. Close your other timeline if it hasn't already collapsed. Tell your guards that the disturbance here is handled.."Simple, straightforward, and to the point as far as commands went.
I could feel Coil's will fighting my order, but compared to any fully-trained Magus, it was a fool's effort. In the end, his features slackened, and he nodded slowly. "Yes."
The sort of dazed-out, painfully neutral expression on his face? It made me profoundly uncomfortable, doing nothing else but bolstering my resolve to not rely on Mastering in the future. For now, I'd swallow my pride and morals for getting the job done.
Carefully I lifted myself off from straddling his chest, before allowing him to stand to his feet. That didn't mean I wasn't cautious as he moved to grab his radio, but in the end, my worries were unfounded.
"Disregard any sounds from my office," Coil spoke, in that cool, confident voice of his. "There was a minor disruption that's been resolved."
Man, it was good he tortured people in this place regularly. It made it so no one questioned when there was something odd coming from the office.
So that just left me standing there, looking at the mercenaries that were taken out of the equation for the foreseeable future. Me, and Coil, and my disbelief at how simple it was.
Okay, maybe it wasn't that simple, but I'd expected more… explosive action? Climax?
Then again, this was real life. You never really got the ending to things you expected. Just a sort of vague anticlimax as things continued, the same as ever before. I'd been a little spoiled by sumptuous action scenes in fanfiction and stories I'd read, that had big, labyrinthine plans to tackle Coil.
The reality was, if you knew his powers and how to get around them, it wasn't that bad. That, and I'd known he was going to be on my hitlist the moment I dropped into this city. Giving him any amount of time to build up an idea of my capabilities, or target me, would have probably made this a significantly more challenging engagement.
Taking in a deep breath, I felt a weight release off of my shoulders I hadn't even known was there. It was… freeing, in a way I couldn't explain, that this bogeyman that'd haunted over so many of the worst events of the story was nearby. Subverted, for however long my Hypnosis lasted.
Which meant I couldn't dawdle for long, basking in my success. "Coil," I started, turning to the man. "Call Tattletale, then hand me the phone, stay silent, and begin undoing whatever dead man's switches you have on the base."
I could have said more, but I didn't see much point in taunting a dead man walking. Lisa would do more than enough of it for the both of us.
Logically, handing off Coil's operation to Lisa served a few purposes. One, I had no intention of running it from the shadows, because that sounded like a lot of work for little immediate reward. Pilfering some of the funds was fine, but being some bigtime supervillain behind the scenes just wasn't my style.
The Thinker was also, for all her manipulative aspects, considerably more trustworthy on a superficial level than Coil. Oh, sure, she may try to manipulate me. But every social interaction you had with another person was just manipulation on some level, and I suspected she'd read enough about my personality to recognize that even my patience had limits.
Beyond that, having a relatively stable, sedate criminal presence in whatever information-brokering gang she made was preferable to Coil's chaos. I'd like to remove all crime in the city, but logically? Not a possibility.
So it was better to have a stable one in place, with excellent finances, and a Thinker who owed me her life running it. And ensuring she knew that if I could get around Coil's bullshit power, getting to Tattletale wouldn't even be a challenge. Not with my powers consistently growing.
Watching as the man dialed the number, I took it from him at that point, lifting the burner as the unfamiliar female voice on the end answered. "Hello? It's a little quick to be taking us off standby, isn't it?"
Did he have something he'd put the Undersiders on task for? Oh well, it didn't matter.
"Unfortunately, it seems as if Coil is otherwise indisposed for the moment," I responded. "Would you rather discuss the process of taking over his operations with me instead?"
There was a long pause on the other end of the line, before a low, throaty chuckle rolled out of who I had to assume was Tattletale. God, she just sounded smug laughing. Then again, the Negotiator's shard used words as weapons, so maybe she wasn't even aware of it.
"I take it that the bastard is in no state to fight that process?"How could you hear a smile in someone's voice? Maybe that was Lisa's real power.
"He's alive. For the moment, anyway. But I'm not smart enough to untangle, unfuck, and siphon his assets away before I do away with the man." Which was the truth, and frankly, handing over the keys to the operation to Tats solved a few problems for me.
Flat out, it practically removed the Undersiders from the board as a faction, with all of their material needs taken care of. And as infuriating as I could foresee her being, I'd see the benefits of having the support of a strong Thinker in Worm. Few problems couldn't be solved by throwing a big brain at it.
"So you're coming to me, with the presumption to hand over the operation, and Coil on a silver platter to me?"I could tell she was moving on the other end of the call, with an insufferably smug smirk.
I shrugged for no one in particular in response. "Yep. The reality is I'm deeply, deeply disinterested in being a criminal, but I'm dealing with this scumbag because of what he'll do in the future."
Another smaller pause. "You're a precog?"
"In a manner of speaking, yes. Postcognition as well, among other abilities. For my end of things, I just want a small chunk of his finances for my operations, and a few other small things."
Major things I wanted out of this? I'd like to take Chariot underneath my aegis, since without Coil's patronage he'd be an unaligned Tinker jonesing for money. Nothing about his criminal actions cried out maladjustment or malice. Maybe a fairweather morality at worst.
In the middle of this conversation though, the Grimoire tossed out a new perk, and a relatively cheap one too.
This next perk was… solidified gratitude crystals? That could only be seen if you were pure good, or pure evil? Yeah, I was going to pass on that one.
I heard a soft hum from the other end of the line. "That's not unreasonable. But what proof do I have that this isn't some elaborate loyalty test from Coil?"
That was a pretty fair concern, knowing the guy. Doing something like this in a split timeline feels like something that he'd pull to see what someone's response would be. Unfortunately, it just meant Lisa was going to get bludgeoned with secrets until she capitulated.
"Coil's real identity is Thomas Calvert, a PRT consultant. From his point of view, his power is the ability to split timelines, to 'control' destiny. This is, however, wrong." If he had a better idea of what his real ability was, my scheme might not have worked at all.
Clearing my throat, I gave it a brief think of how to explain it. "In actuality, his power is a form of precognition, with it autopiloting him through the actions of the timeline he picks."
"Beyond that, your real name is Sarah Livesy, and your brother was involved during the course of your trigger event. For some time now you've been trying to work on subverting Coil, which is easier said than done, given he's been torturing you to death for information in his alternate timelines."
There was a longer pause on her end at this point, not that I could blame her. It was a bit of a heavy topic to hear that you'd apparently been getting tortured for some time, even if I suspected that she knew it already. Or maybe it was me bringing up her real identity, and her trigger event.
After a few moments had passed, I piped up again. "If you'd like, I could share more, or…?"
"No, I think I've got the gist of it now."There wasn't much of that audible smile in her voice anymore. Not after I'd brought up her trigger event. "The address, if you would?"
Turning to the still-brainwashed, bare-faced Coil, I flicked the speaker mode on the nearby burner. "Coil, if you'd be a dear and give Tattletale the address?"
As the man rattled off the words in that zombie-like tone, I pushed down my shudder and revulsion to the back of my mind. "… Oh wow," Lisa responded, something of a dull tone in her words. "You've actually got him whammied good, huh?"
"For obvious reasons, I like keeping my Human Master powers out of the spotlight." Then I paused, something coming to mind. "… But if it makes you feel better, feel free to bring Alec, Brian, or Rachel with you for security."
Not everyone would just trust a Master to act politely, or not be luring them into a trap. I wouldn't, and Lisa was almost certainly a bit smarter than me. For now, anyway.
"I think I'll take you up on that. Be seeing you soon, Folklord."With that, she hung up. Was it surprising that she figured out my real identity? Not really, and given that I was planning on mildly threatening her into compliance if she spilled my part in the events here, I wasn't worried about it either.
With that bit of prep work done, I went back to Coil to ensure he was in the process of taking down his countermeasures and re-applied a dose of Hypnosis just to be safe. No point in taking any risks when I was this close to the finish line. The guards meanwhile, were all thoroughly disarmed, and tied together by the wrists with zip ties.
Because Coil was exactly the kind of creep that kept restraints in his office when I inquired about it.
Five, ten, twenty, thirty minutes passed by, as I grew increasingly antsy. It was late, and this whole operation was so far beyond my comfort zone already, especially with how readily it all came together. Which made me thankful when there was a small call from the nearby intercom.
"Sir, we have Tattletale and Grue here for your meeting. Shall we send them ahead?"
"Feel free," Coil confirmed, hitting the intercom readily enough.
It didn't take much longer for Tattletale and Grue to enter, in costume, though I could see that both of them were on edge. You could get a read for that sort of thing from the posture alone, really. Though it may have had something with the cloud of darkness I'd used to cover my head, to hide as many details as possible from Lisa's sight.
Grue's costume was pretty cool to see in person, and physically he might have been more intimidating to me before I got something like Evolution or Combat Cyborg. As it was now, it was just something to take note of, as the helmeted face turned my way. I wasn't sure what it was in particular, but it might be the umbral mask I was using here.
In the story, he wasn't entirely aware of who the boss was behind the Undersiders, but apparently Tattletale had spilled the beans to him. As to what else she told him, he didn't have the faintest clue.
Meanwhile, Lisa was wearing a skintight lavender bodysuit, and swooping lines of black to make out the various iconography on her outfit. She carried herself with confidence, but there was something rigid in her shoulders that didn't entirely unclench until she saw Coil. "Holy shit. You actually did it…"
"I'd made it clear he wasn't going to be a problem, didn't I?" I gently stated.
"There's a world of difference between knowing, and seeing it with your own eyes." I saw Lisa tilt her head slightly to the side as she stared at Calvert. "Is he… aware, right now?"
Glancing over at the unmasked Calvert, I gave a small shrug. "No clue. He can't do anything I don't tell him to do, but my current skills with the Master-aspect of my powers leaves something to be desired."
That was when Grue chose to add in his two cents. His voice had a weird quality that came with the effect his power had on it. "And what are you getting out of this entire situation?"
A fair question. From his perspective, this might look like some kind of takeover of Coil's operation. The reality was I had zero interest in managing a vast criminal conspiracy.
"Safety. Stability. Order." I shrugged. "That, and the fact that Thomas Calvert is a psychopath that doesn't give two shits about the Unwritten Rules."
Pointing at Lisa, I continued. "He threatened her into working for him at gunpoint in her civilian identity. If given the opportunity, he had plans to kidnap a pre-teen for her precognitive power, and addict her to drugs to keep her dependent on him."
Slowly, my hand drifted towards Grue. "For you? I'm familiar with your identity, but unlike Coil, I have no intention of using it. Him on the other hand? He's been holding back the social worker process to keep you from gaining custody of your sister, and thus keeping you under his thumb."
I could see Grue stiffen at the offhand mention of his identity, but he was professional enough not to fly off the handle. "You have proof of that? Forgive me if I'm not taking a Master at their word."
"If you wouldn't trust what comes out of the mouth of a Master victim, trust Tattletale."
Which was more of a lateral move in trustworthiness, but I kept quiet about that. Or about the fact that technically I could have Mastered her into compliance. Sometimes silence was your best ally.
At that, Grue glanced towards Lisa, who gave a nod so shallow you could have missed it. "He's right, by and large. I would have given some warning to you, but…" The unspoken threat of her 'recruitment' hung in the air.
"That's not even talking about the fact that the casino heist you got sent on was to set up having the Undersiders killed, or taken out of commission as a gang. You were all loose ends for him."
Taylor joining them in Canon was something that significantly changed the trajectory of the group from whatever they were intended on being before. She didn't get called the 'Queen of Escalation' just because it was a good meme. Her morals, ironically, could be seen as pushing the group onwards to greater acts of future villainy.
Without her influence, I'm not sure if any of them even had the ambition to shoot for something so lofty as the Warlords of Brockton Bay. They only fell into that role because of Coil's urging and after his death they just kept it.. Though, I was generally hoping to avoid the whole chain of events in their entirety.
"But you invited me here because you have no intention of letting that happen, do you?" Lisa looked at me, the ghost of a smile on her lips. "You want to hand over the keys of the operation to me."
Fighting against Lisa's power was useless, considering how busted it was. "Yep. I might do some shady things, but the handling of his operation is beyond the pale, even for me. Provided you clean house of the fucked up mercs working for him, and don't destabilize the city? I don't care what you do with it."
His mercs that had vices like pedophilia? The ones with socially unacceptable vices so far beyond the pale that even Coil looked at them sideways? They all had to go.
"You're just handing off the keys to the kingdom? Just like that?" Grue seemed cautious of the proposition, arms crossed in front of his chest. Which was fair. In his position I'd be the same.
I couldn't show them the smile underneath my mask, but I did have one on my face at that question. "Well, I have a few other small provisions as well. Nothing too big."
"Such as…?" Lisa was making herself comfortable, grabbing one of the chairs in front of Coil's desk and lounging in it like she owned the place. Which, I guess she would technically, very shortly.
"A Number Man account, with twenty million dollars for starters. You can drop off the card with access to the account at a dead drop, and tell me the location on P.H.O." That felt like a pretty reasonable starting position for something I'd get for my trouble. I lived very cheaply to begin with, so most expenses I had would come from funding any Tinkers I hired than anything else.
Lisa gave a soft hum, but nodded all the same. "Doable. You've got some big projects in mind?"
"Something like that. Some assistance with surreptitiously acquiring some equipment wouldn't be amiss either." Buying Tinker equipment was tough, given everyone and their mother had their eyes peeled for people buying random assortments of tools en masse.
I wasn't finished with my demands, though. And they very much were demands. Considering I was giving Lisa her autonomy and the keys to a vast criminal enterprise, any pride she felt about that could ideally be swallowed.
"There's a Tinker underneath Coil's employ," I started, eyes meeting Lisa's steadily. "I'd like first dibs on trying to recruit him." I'd never got much of a read on Trevor's personality in the story, but he didn't seem like a totally unmanageable monster.
The bar for heroism in Brockton Bay was incredibly low, thanks to Shadow Stalker. I'd take what I could get, and I happened to have a Tinker specialty that'd jive exceptionally well with his mobility-focused one. Convincing him of that, rather than letting him get pulled into the orbit of the Undersiders, was the key.
In the interim of me sitting in Coil's office, I'd just had the man give me the teen's number. That, and everything they'd picked up on Trainwreck. Recruiting him might be a little more dodgy…
"Easily done as well," the Thinker acceded. Something glittered in her eyes though, and I had a suspicion Trevor would be getting a hefty offer after my talk with him. "For now, can you tell Coil to start the process of transferring over control of his accounts?" The smile on her face was positively vulpine. "Then we can deal with him after."
Well, I knew how Lisa was planning on dealing with him. Better her than me, since I'd been waffling about my ability to kill him for some time. I knew he had to die, but y'know… killing someone when you'd never done so was a big deal.
Some people were born ice-cold killers, stonefaced motherfuckers who could just drop bodies at the slightest notice. I really wasn't that type of guy. If anything, I was a mediocre fighter with a lot of really good tricks at my disposal. That didn't translate to that killing instinct some people had.
"Coil, do as she asks and start the process of giving her all your information." There was something to be said about how emotionlessly he carried through that order, as Lisa moved to walk to the computer and hungrily involve herself in the processes of adding to her own power.
I on the other hand felt as if I should let them know about some of the other stuff Coil had in motion, since I wasn't sure if it'd come to pass. Though the Grimoire distracted me by tossing me a new perk.
And this one had some legs on it.
Spoiler: The Need For Big Booms(400CP)
The Need For Big Booms(Konosuba - 400CP) - Once a day isn't enough for you anymore. You have to feed the need inside you. Normally, we'd not be in the business of supporting such magical addictions but we'll give you a little allowance. Be it limited casts per day or stuff with massive energy costs, we've got a solution to both. The first is that, once per day, you are able to cast a spell regardless of any energy costs it may have. Even if it costs as much as you have at full or more, you can get one standard use out free. Do note that this will only work with spells that have set energy costs. If something could be charged forever or works based on how much energy you put in, the best you'd get is the minimum energy use of that spell. The second way we're encouraging you is the ability to pay large amounts of energy to cast spells that are normally usable only a few times per day. The more powerful the spell, the more energy you'll need to pay and not all spells will be payable at your current strength.My dreams of turning into a dragon were all the more feasible with that perk, along with the spells in my future that might carry heavier expenditures. Just that alone was invaluable, even if it didn't do anything for me at that very moment.
Lisa had stilled a little nearby, reading something from my body language. "… Oh, it's just random, isn't it…?" She murmured, trailing off. "And there's an element of choice too. That's kind of terrifying."
"Hmm?" Grue asked, looking between us with some confusion, while Lisa was bent near the computer, typing away at something. "What are you talking about?"
"I'm talking about how mister Trump over here has a randomly growing powerset he's got little direct control over." She wasn't even looking my way, and I could hear that smug smirk in her voice. "I thought it scaled off combat and conflict, but no, just sitting around would net him free powers."
God save me from clever Thinkers. That was one of the reasons why I distinctly wasn't trying to shove her into a geas, if only because there was no way Lisa would accept one. She'd just received her freedom back, so constraining it again so soon after was a bad idea.
With a deep and long inhale, followed by a similar exhale, I turned my attention to the two of them again. "There's likely one last thing the two of you should be aware of. Coil may have been in the midst of courting the Travelers, potentially as replacement assets for the Undersiders. They might be coming to this city, even if he wasn't going to wholly invite them here."
I couldn't remember if they were recruited before or after he'd snatched Dinah.
"I've heard about them. They've all got pretty solid powers, as far as I can remember," Grue admitted. "Why Brockton Bay, though? There's gotta be places with less turnover and gangs."
A fair point. Unless you were packing a punch and had some forces behind you, most criminals weren't keen to move into Brockton Bay. The existing status quo meant a lot of the stable gangs weren't keen to accommodate newcomers.
"They've got a member that's been kept out of the public eye," I explained. "Noelle. She's… essentially every S-Class Trump threat rolled into one. It doesn't help that the entire gang is from Madison. And very muched fucked with by Ziz."
That managed to get Lisa to stop typing, and Grue's attention to focus on me a bit more. "… What?" Grue dragged out that word, concern clear even through the distortion to his voice.
I gave them a small nod. "Yeah. That's their big secret, and maybe if my powers had developed in a different way, perhaps I could have even helped them." If, though. Right now, the motley collection of them was a dangerous group to contend with. "If they come, they're probably hoping Panacea could fix their last member."
… Actually, considering my healing capabilities, I might be joining that list depending on how quickly news of them spread. "If Noelle comes into contact with Panacea though, there's a genuine chance that you should write off the eastern seaboard of the U.S." That wasn't a joke either, not with what I knew of both of their powers.
"If you can, in Coil's guise or using his body double, strongly dissuading them from coming here would be ideal," I pressed. Maybe a more heroic person would maybe give more of a shit about the Travelers, but even I had my limits. Especially considering what clones of me could unleash onto the world.
No, the smart thing to do would be a small, untraceable note delivered to the PRT, letting them know about the threat they posed. Probably advising that they get taken out from afar, with as little Cape involvement as possible, with extreme prejudice. Brutal, but I didn't owe the Travelers anything.
"If there's nothing else, I think I can handle the transition of Coil's accounts from here," Lisa sighed, but in the most satisfied way possible. Much like the cat that ate the canary, she brought herself up to her full height, rolling her neck with a lazy satisfaction.
The blonde explored around until she found a handgun in the desk, idly checking to see if it was loaded. Grue watched the scene with some inscrutable emotion, and I wished I could have seen what his face was like underneath that mask. Did Lisa tell him what she was going to do here, or was he going with the flow?
I'd never gotten the picture of him being totally okay with killing, but Coil was very much a threat to his sister. Which sounded like the best way to get him onboard with the idea that their shady boss had to go. That, and the confirmed knowledge that he'd been sandbagging his attempts to gain custody…
Well, maybe it was pretty understandable why he wasn't going to shed any tears for Coil.
She spared a glance my way, "Can you drop your hypnosis and make him aware- No, nevermind. You find that distasteful, to gloat over someone like that."
"I do." No point in denying it.
Turning my way, something firm and unkind passed over Lisa's features. "Then you don't know what it's like to live under the fear of someone fully willing and able to do whatever they like to you." A gunshot in an enclosed space like this was going to leave our ears ringing, but I also got the distinct feeling that Lisa didn't care.
Not sure I could blame her. If someone forced me to work for them at gunpoint, and I knew for a fact that they'd tortured me countless times in alternate timelines for info? Killing them was the least of what I'd do. "And I imagine you wouldn't know how good revenge feels when you get it…"
I opened my mouth to respond, but didn't get a chance to before Lisa trained the gun on Coil once more. Adjusting the slide on the glock, she might not have had the best posture with the glock, but it really didn't matter for something like this.
Point blank to someone, there was no way her shot missed. There was only the faint hesitance in her posture before she steeled herself, and promptly pulled the trigger.
Cerebrally, I should have been able to push this out of my mind. Objectively, I'd helped kill people, even if it was indirectly, being a mechanic on a radar jet that assisted fighters when I was deployed. Yet I was made painfully aware of how far I had to go to be comfortable in this world of casual violence as the Thinker's skull given a new opening as the bullet ripped into him.
Blood gushed as he snapped back, and Coil slumped back into his chair. Just like that, Coil was dead.
It was over so fast I barely even had a chance to process it, before my mind registered the gore in front of me. Blood in quantities you'd never see in amounts outside of a movie or a video game. Gorge and bile rose in my throat, and it was only because I reinforced myself that I didn't end up vomiting right then and there.
But it was a close thing, even as my reflex to gag was pushed down. For now, I merely felt green and sick at the cold-blooded murder, yet this situation was fucked from every angle conceivable. There was some culpability on my behalf too, given I'd Mastered the man and offered him up like a lamb to the slaughter. He wasn't good, he likely never would have changed, but even still…
I was responsible for this. Directly responsible for his death, as the painful ringing in my ears made me aware. The effort it took to rip my vision away from his corpse and slowly swallow centered me, but only long enough that I knew I'd fall apart later, out of sight.
"… I think I'll take my leave now. For your part, I guess I'll just… leave you to handle your new acquisition." I swallowed again, my mouth filling with saliva, face hot, the need to get away from this thing I caused hot and heavy.
Times like this, it made me realize precisely how fucked Earth-Bet was.
Lisa stared at the body even longer than I did, watching it with an intensity that went even further beyond my own. Was this her first kill? Did she even process things like that anymore? Worm wrote her personality one way, yet if there was anything obvious to me, it was that real life was not a story.
And Thinker powers could totally alter how people perceived the same event.
"Hmm?" She seemed to recognize that I'd said something, slowly unloading the pistol as she glanced my way. "Ah. Thank you for helping to conclude things. I… I'll be in touch."
An unspoken lack of saying when hung in the air after that statement, though. This was a deal with the devil, the first real derailment of canon events that I'd directly caused. So here's hoping it was the right thing to do./I]
"Let it be known that I'm trusting you to not let this go to your head," I said, measuring each word carefully. "If I have to come back here again, I'm going to skip the Mastering and go straight to handling business. But… I think we could do business if everything stays above board."
The two of us were very different people, but Lisa wasn't so despicable that I was unwilling to work with her. The small nod she gave me after my words made it clear she'd at least recognized that there was the unsaid threat of me having to come back to this base.
That need to get away wasn't fading either, and I didn't have the patience to bandy words with the two villains anymore. So I quickly chanted and transformed into a swarm of rats, and made my way out the way I'd come into the base.
When I was going through emotional shit, I bottled it up. That was my response, to push my feelings away until they didn't matter anymore, even if anyone could see I was going through something on my face. When it came to my ability to process things, that was even worse.
So no, it might not have been the smartest way to make my exit. But anywhere else was better than there, with the corpse my actions had created.
I got home.
It said something about how screwed I was that the intervening distance between the base and the group home had been totally devoured into the blackness of my memory. I didn't remember changing, or walking into my room with lead feet, or even collapsing onto my bed, looking up at the top bunk above me.
Nor did Rio's presence on his bunk even register to me. The only time it clicked was when I saw his face lean over and peek at me from above, a small frown on his features. "You alright, bud?"
That was an easy one to answer. "I think I'm pretty fuckin' far from okay."
"I could tell. Flannerty was talking to you when you walked in for comin' so late, but you just sort of brushed her off."
Things must have been worse than I'd thought if I'd ignored that sweet old lady. "Shit got complicated today."
"Like, how complicated? Is the PRT about to kick down our front door?"
My head shook in the negative, hands laid clasped onto my chest my eyes stared at the wooden slats above me. "No. Just me getting in over my head, and havin' to… deal with the consequences."
There was something pink I think was grey matter, cooling on the ground of Coil's office right now.
"Right," Rio sighed out, disbelief thick in his voice, as the mattress underneath him squeaked with his movement. "… You wanna go shitpost on P.H.O. for a bit? I can't sleep."
This might be a first for me. I didn't think I actually wanted to be alone in this moment. "I…" I swallowed again, as out of the corner of my eyes Rio was sleepily rubbing his eyes, clad in his pajamas. "Sure. Maybe someone posted a fight or something."
Right here and now, things were not okay with me. But I could be. So picking myself up, I followed after the teen, breathing slow to center myself.
"… Thank you, Rio."
Glancing over his shoulder, he shot me a small smile, made all the more weary by how he'd pulled himself out of a restive state. "What the hell else are friends for?"
It was almost like the Grimoire wanted to reward me for that, as it spat it a new perk. But given that it was weak World of Darkness sorcery, and the ability to move an item ten feet? I ignored it in favor of turning my attention to my friend.
There'd be time for superhero stuff tomorrow. Tonight, I just wanted to act my physical age for once.
Spoiler: Author's Note
This chapter mugged me and left me for dead. I fretted for ages on how to settle the Coil problem, and I almost pulled a Chamberlain and capitulated to put the problem off for another time. In the end I'm glad I didn't, but I'm not sure how well I captured Lisa and Grue's personalities here. Writing characters that aren't mine is difficult, and I've got a lot more respect for people that manage to do that shit well.
All in all, this chapter still might go through revisions and rewrites if when I post it people are like "This is fucking dumb, there's no way that'd work, etc". For now, I'm washing my hands of it.
300 CPSpoiler: Accepted Perks
The Need For Big Booms(Konosuba - 400CP) - Once a day isn't enough for you anymore. You have to feed the need inside you. Normally, we'd not be in the business of supporting such magical addictions but we'll give you a little allowance. Be it limited casts per day or stuff with massive energy costs, we've got a solution to both. The first is that, once per day, you are able to cast a spell regardless of any energy costs it may have. Even if it costs as much as you have at full or more, you can get one standard use out free. Do note that this will only work with spells that have set energy costs. If something could be charged forever or works based on how much energy you put in, the best you'd get is the minimum energy use of that spell. The second way we're encouraging you is the ability to pay large amounts of energy to cast spells that are normally usable only a few times per day. The more powerful the spell, the more energy you'll need to pay and not all spells will be payable at your current strength.Chapter 10
March 22nd, 2011, 1:43 am
Lisa
In the aftermath of Folklord leaving, she managed to hold herself together long enough to promptly wait until she was sure he was gone. Then Lisa promptly went to the nearest bin and vomited.
Trying to present a face of cool assurance and cold-bloodedness didn't hold up when she was trying not to blow chunks the entire time. Not with her power open wide for the entire conversation, and then the subsequent execution. Not tamping down on it when she blew Coil's brains out was a mistake on her part.
-ood splatter from a short-range handgun, execution style. Indicates a high amount of personal antagonism towards the target-
Yeah, no shit. Thanks for stating the obvious.
Brian approached, idly patting her back, though with his trademark awkwardness in a situation like this. Put him in a Cape fight and he'd be a great leader, but throw him for a loop with this and he was stuck on the backfoot. The attempt at trying to soothe her was appreciated all the same.
"You gonna be alright…?" He inquired, which was a fair question.
Concerned about your mental state. Perturbed by how readily you executed Coil. Accepting of perceived necessity of the action.
Well, that was a small relief. Now she needed to tamp down on her power, because it was agonizing to hold open at this point. Wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, she gave him a small shake of her head. "Not particularly," Lisa admitted, "But we've got to wrangle the rest of this operation into order before I can knock myself out with sleeping pills."
"So we're doing it? Just… sliding into Coil's shoes, just like that?" Brian seemed reticent, and she knew why. It was a pretty sizable escalation from what they'd been doing before.
Thankfully, she could thoroughly disabuse him of that notion. "Not even close. The sheer scale of what Coil was doing was primed towards his ambitions and a paranoid surveillance state on everyone, and everything that might have been a threat."
How much of his profits were turned towards those ends was probably somewhere in his ledgers. She refused to believe he didn't keep track of it somewhere in those myriad files she now had access to. "Realistically, we're going to follow through with Folklord's demands, and downscale as much as possible for what's better for the Undersiders."
"And you're cool with just… taking directions from Folklord?" He seemed a little surprised by that, which only made her chuckle all the more.
"Not in the slightest. He's a Trump that gains powers randomly, with a sharp escalation curve. Morally, he's not straight-laced, but he's a big rules guy, and Mastering Coil was a bit beyond the pale for him." She thought back to everything she'd taken from their interaction, as her power collated those observations.
Deeply uncomfortable with actions, but sees them as a requirement for the continued stability of the city. Sees Undersiders as least threat in Brockton Bay, will not engage unless publicly visible actions are taken.
It painted the picture of someone who didn't want to do what he did but recognized that Coil was a threat to himself. Maybe someone personal or special to him, if she read him right. "Provided we stay from the level of escalation the Empire or the ABB presents, we'll be fine."
They didn't even need to be on that level anymore either. Coil's money, after downsizing his operation, was going to ensure that the core members of the Undersiders would be staying in place. After that… they could think about a proper expansion into new avenues of making money.
Prostitution, arms running, human trafficking, and drug dealing, were crimes for groups that didn't have a powerful Thinker on their side. Or Coil's connections to Accord, which were now supplanted by her.
Brian watched her for a long moment, before something untensed in his posture and he gave her a nod. "Alright. I'll have to take your word for it. All in all, he didn't seem… very heroic, but I guess this is a bit out of left field for anyone to deal with."
Heroism does not come naturally to Folklord. Heroics is motivated purely by resource acquisition for long-term projects.
"He's got a plan of his own that requires him to be a Hero, is my best guess," Lisa admitted, as she glanced over at Coil's body. "Though he's definitely got some hard edges on him too."
For now, the two of them were going to have to likely spend the rest of the night going through the snake's files. That, and assuring the mercenaries that while there'd been a change in leadership, everything else was going to be the same. At least until she could find the true scum amongst their number, and purge the organization thoroughly.
Folklord had some sort of Thinker component to his powerset, so she did not doubt that if he said he could find her? He meant it. Best to keep on his good side… for now. There was a way to leverage him, but outright blackmail was a poor choice to use on someone who'd displayed very little unwillingness to outright Master existential threats.
Master ability displayed was one Folklord proved uncomfortable with, not only from moral stance, but lack of practice.
Hmm. Interesting. She'd add it to the pile of mysteries surrounding how his powers worked, from what little glimpses she saw of them. That darkness he generated, for example, wasn't anything like Brian's, even if it superficially shared a theme. It only absorbed light, nothing else.
Time passed even further as she and Brian dug into the guts of the operation through the takeover, and rifling through files, assuring mercenaries that yes, nothing was wrong. It was going to all but ensure that she was wiped out for the next day or so, but the reasoning was a good one.
It also introduced her to a rather unfortunate realization.
Coil had to have been the bane of her existence, the reason she woke up at times with cold shivers at night, and generally quite possibly one of the worst people she'd ever met. Yet with all that being said, she had a newfound appreciation for how much she'd been insulated from the inner workings of his operation. To call it Byzantine was an understatement.
Meticulously planned squad formations, operations, patrol routes, and spreadsheets listing detailed dossiers on everyone under his employ. Given what she now knew about his power, it was almost a guarantee that most of it was acquired through the sorts of violation that she'd rather not know about.
Concerning the sheer amount of personal data present, numerous sessions of torture likely required. Cross-examination of answers between various Undersiders during these sessions, before termination of simulations most probable use of precognition.
When Brian saw these, along with the various reports on just about every single member of his family, including Aisha…
Well, she got called a dumbass a few times, though her power knew he was just feeling particularly impotent. After all, they'd had a Sword of Damocles hanging over their heads without any of them besides Lisa knowing about it. If it wasn't for their friendly neighborhood vigilante, who'd then extorted a bit of money from them, they wouldn't have gotten out of the situation untouched.
That, more than anything else, pressed home the need to learn more about how his powers worked. Whether to know if they even had a chance against fighting him if it came down to it… or finding other solutions to this prickly relationship.
One way or another, neither of them was going to be getting much in the way of rest as the new order was established across what was formerly Coil's operations.
March 23nd, 2011 Odell
I dislike hemming and hawing over my actions. Which made going to school after taking out Coil feel pretty odd. Walking around, going to classes like I hadn't just enabled a murder the night before, and becoming a millionaire by doing so.
Was I right to kill Coil? Did I do the right thing by handing over Coil's operation to Lisa to disentangle and manage, given I didn't have the know-how or the grit to handle that dismantling? This was a Gordian knot of a situation where I don't think there was a right answer.
Well, besides killing Coil. I felt pretty confident that was the right choice there.
I didn't have Path to Victory or even the slightly weaker equivalents from the Grimoire. Expecting me to have threaded the needle in the perfect choice was unreasonable, I knew, but it didn't mean I was happy with it. In the end, everyone had to make their peace with their choices.
That included me.
On the flipside, it meant that I also had some other things to come to grips with, like the enormous windfall I had coming my way. Those millions I demanded from Lisa seemed like a lot, but in reality for the plans I had? They'd disappear relatively quickly when it came to paying all those different expenses in my way.
To set up a corporate team we were going to need to create a base, and that wouldn't be that bad. Given that there were only so many interests in the Bay that even could infiltrate my future organization, none were remotely as insidious as Coil. But even the low-cost properties of Brockton Bay had price tags attached to them, and that number only went up the better the site.
From there, you had to pay for all sorts of different expenses. I'm talking equipment for the Tinkers I wanted to recruit, and myself. Materials for said Tinkers. More conventional and supernatural security apparatuses that I would set up in time. These weren't going to be cheap, either.
So no, it was a lot of money, but I was naturally a frugal person and couldn't exactly explain where I got a stupid amount of cash like that easily. Not without having some very pointed questions thrown my way, as a kid in a group home. Very little was going to change about my day-to-day life, and I considered the money pilfered from Coil's accounts essentially pretty to look at, but not very useful in practice.
I was pretty desultory for the majority of that day, at least until I properly got a message from Lisa over PHO concerning the dead drop. Ducking out of Winslow as soon as possible, I made my way over to the abandoned home near the Trainyard where she'd dumped my Number Man card. Picking that up was useful, but even better was getting Trevor's contact info.
With Coil dead, that left him decidedly without a patron. Lisa could and almost certainly would fill that role if it was left open, which meant I had to fill the hole left by the Thinker's absence. Or at least try to, when I came to recruit him.
How hard could it be?
March 24th, 2011
I'd sent Trevor a text from a burner phone with a time at night, and a location in the Docks to meet up. There could have been nicer ways to handle the issue, but I was light on time, and my schedule was more packed than not these days. Doing things slowly was not really in the cards.
So instead I loitered around on a rooftop, in the dead of night. I'd chosen a Friday evening if only because teens might be allowed to run around a bit more than they would otherwise be able to. However, the time it offered me to finally update my costume was useful.
Along with another special item I'd managed to hammer out with some rudimentary etching tools.
I went to a bunch of different places in my old costume to shop, and once they were assured that I wasn't robbing the stores? They were usually pretty willing to play ball, considering the expense of some of those purchases. As the saying goes, money talks.
Knee-high brown leather boots and black trousers that were fashioned after breeches, bought out of whatever material seemed the hardiest. It was a place that sold clothes for theater productions, so I wasn't sure how hard it'd hold up, but there wasn't anything a bit of Dust couldn't shore up eventually. Beyond that, I wore a black vest over a red button-up shirt, with a similarly colored scarf that could be pulled up over the lower half of my face.
Lastly was the tricorn leather hat, and long black overcoat. I was cribbing pretty heavily off what I remembered of the Bloodborne Hunter Set of armor for this general look since I felt like it had a sort of aristocratic vibe. Given my name was Folklord, that sort of thing worked for me.
It'd hopefully tide me over until I managed to get or craft some proper armor, since the pieces were all meant to be bought in bulk for theater productions across the state. However as I looked over my outfit, the Grimoire tossed something new at me. Something I'd desperately wanted for quite some time.
Spoiler: Power Granting Deal(400CP)
Power Granting Deal(Sailor Moon - 400CP) - You may grant a portion of your power and some of your powers to up to eight willing people at the same time, if you wish. This power is connected to you, and you may take it back any time you wish. However, your power will decrease the more power you give someone. You may also share your powers or other forms with people, but until you take them back you will lack the power you gave. You may, for example, give someone your fire powers or part of your vast wells of magical power or give your excess energy to someone to empower them.
I took it, even if it ate up the majority of my charge. I'd been looking for a perk like this for some time, hoping for it, because it gave me an ability I desperately needed. No longer was I at the whims of needing to recruit parahumans exclusively. Now?
Now I could recruit anyone, and hand them powers willy-nilly. It changed the calculus of my purchasing decisions for the Grimoire too, given the way it all but ensured that I'd look differently at perks I would have ignored before. Things that were minor on their own as boons, when given as part of a greater package of powers?
Well, it changed things. It changed things considerably more than I would have been expecting, but I was quite pleased with it.
Maybe I was deep enough in that reverie of presumptions on the future to be distracted by Trevor's approach. By the time I turned around at the sound of something metal hitting the edge of the roof, I could spot someone clambering over the lip. It gave me the first glimpse I had of Trevor Medina.
Physically, not someone I'd have considered all that daunting at the moment. His power armor was at that awkward, ungainly phase of the Tinker cycle, kludged together pieces that didn't have the clean uniformity you'd see on a more experienced Tinker.
"You must be Trevor," I greeted, giving the teen a nod, "I'm happy you got my message."
"It's hard to ignore that sort of thing when it's coming from my boss," was his response, as he stowed away what appeared to be a grappling hook onto his belt, "So what's he want? This is a bit out of nowhere for him."
How to delicately handle this…
"Unfortunately, I'm here to make you aware that Coil is no longer around to run his operation," I very diplomatically stated, hands clasped in front of me where he could see them. No need to make him get antsy.
Because he was very much twitching when he heard that. "… No longer around?"
"Deceased. Dead. Gone from this plane of existence," I stated, clearly, in no uncertain terms, "I didn't kill him, but I certainly saw it happen. His operation is being downsized and gutted as we speak, by the new management in charge of it."
Already he looked prepared to bolt, and I couldn't even blame him. In a position like his, tenuous and desirable by the main factions by the dint of being a Tinker, caution was warranted. He didn't need to be afraid of me, however, and I intended to assure him of that.
Raising a hand to forestall his instinct to leave, I carefully reached into my coat. I saw him stiffen, but I was also moving slow enough that a mobility-focused Tinker, even one this early in his cycle, ought to get away. "I got your contact information through the new management, who believed we could work well together. And to a degree, I can assure a considerably stabler working relationship."
"That's a big claim."
"I'm willing to back it up with more factual evidence," I shrugged, as I pulled out a small necklace, tossing it in the space on the roof between us.
He eyed it with some trepidation, helmeted face looking back at me briefly, and then back at it. "What is that? Your evidence?"
"I'm a Tinker as well, with a specialty you'll find is singularly complimentary to your own," I explained, gesturing at the necklace. "It allows me to imbue objects with minor powers of their own, not entirely unlike Dauntless. That necklace can increase the amount of ground you cover twice over, functionally doubling your speed."
It didn't increase your agility, or reflexes, yet even that singular boost was a massive boon for someone like Trevor. I'd bought a premade iron talisman and an etching set, carving away at it and enchanting it with my supply of Dust, meager as it was.
"That's…" He paused, obviously trying to find his words, "That's not a small boost."
"Not at all, especially for someone with a mobility, movement specialty like your own. It's one of the benefits you'd have to working with a fellow Tinker," I gestured at it again, "Feel free to try it on."
Carefully, he watched me as he headed to the necklace. Body language hinting that he was trying not to rush and just shove it onto his neck. First he inspected it, but whenever he found that it was acceptable? He immediately threw it on.
The shift was pretty noticeable, as the raw distance that he covered just from walking alone was visibly faster. It was odd to see, yet given how antsy he was getting, it was obvious that he was excited.
"Holy fuck. Shit. Do you know what I could do with something like this? How fast could I go, for half the effort?" There was an excited tone in his voice, as he ran circles around me testing the iron talisman, breathing hard. Not from exertion, but if I had to guess, whatever silly Tinker ideas he was having.
I was halfway tempted to stop him since I was fairly sure that he was working himself up into a fugue.
"Nope," was my admission, "My specialty is limited in some ways that pretty much would sideline me if I didn't have other things I could do. I'm Folklord, and I've got an offer for you."
"Does it include this sick-ass necklace that was made for me?"
"Yep," I popped the p at the end, "Among other things. I took a nice chunk of Coil's change when I arranged his downfall. Currently, I'm in the beginning stages of creating a corporate hero team for Brockton Bay."
As in, it was theorized I'd do it. I still needed to find someone to serve as a spokesperson or who had a fair amount of business knowledge. Easier said than done.
"That's… not unwelcome, I guess," Trevor shrugged, obviously not as enthused, "Is this an offer I can refuse?"
"Wholeheartedly. The last thing I want is a Tinker at my back who doesn't want to be there. There are easier ways to die ironically."
That was the truth. Tinkers could be enslaved right up until they outscaled you in terms of technological development. Some might not, others could do it in relatively short amounts of time. It always seemed like a big gamble to me to try and enslave a Tinker, especially with such risky rewards.
I'm also the type of person to hold a mean grudge when fucked over, so maybe that came into play concerning how I felt about it. If someone did something like that to me, you could expect swift retribution before long.
That seemed to be the right thing to say to him if the nod he gave me was any sign.
"That's good to hear. I'm not sure if I'm all gung-ho about the whole hero thing, but-"
"Did I mention it came with a fairly generous workshop and supply budget?" I asked, cocking my head to the side, slightly, "What other prospects are there in the city? Circus is going to get rolled up into the Undersiders probably. The Wards and Protectorate put more rules than not on their Tinkers. I don't think you're Asian enough for the ABB, or caucasoid enough for the Empire."
I didn't even bother mentioning the Merchants, for obvious reasons.
"That's fair," he admitted with a slow sigh.
"Besides, if you don't like it, you don't have to stick with the operation. Just give the heroics a chance, and if it turns out that it ain't for you? We'll walk away, no hard feelings."
In my eyes, that was a fair deal. It seemed like he agreed as well, "Alright. I'm willing to give this a shake at least, and see where it goes."
Ironic, given the fact that he was meant to be an undercover agent inside of the Wards. Now he was about to become a Hero for real. Funny how the vagaries of cosmic timelines shook out.
"Excellent. We've got a third member that's currently a bit shy, and is practicing on their powers before they debut," I lied, like a fucking liar. Rio didn't have a single goddamn power to his name, but that'd change before long. It might not be anytime soon but in the next couple of weeks?
I'd come across something I could hand off to him. Truthfully, I was thinking of giving him Possessive Predator, because the biggest use for it had come in dealing with Coil. Beyond that, it was just a very useful Thinker power. If I hadn't displayed the umbral aura power, I would have handed that off as well.
"Anyone else lined up?"
"I'm thinking of asking Trainwreck since he'd go pretty well with both of our specialties," I added, "He's a Case-53, and his living conditions right now are less than desirable. If I could, I'd like to try and fix at least some of that."
Trainwreck didn't seem like an awful person in canon, just a guy in a truly awful set of straits. If he could get something of his life together, or I could gain a power that would help with his condition at all? Well, it'd go a long way to gaining his loyalty.
"Aren't they a villain…?"
"Barely. Not enough that the Protectorate is going to press the issue, with him being a Case-53 and all. I'm pretty sure I can solve some of his material woes enough to forestall any future needs for criminal behavior."
With that, Trevor shrugged. "Sure. I'll take your word for it. Do you want to swap numbers or something, or…?"
He seemed like the type of guy to go with the flow, without any real strong opinions on… anything? Which wasn't bad. Provided that type of person was channeled to more eminently positive ends, they could be great allies. The problem was when they were turned villainous first.
That's where the troubles and crime usually started.
We swapped numbers between the two of us swiftly, promising to meet up at my base over the weekend so we could properly unmask each other. This was more of a preliminary recruitment operation, and I think it went relatively well.
If it was that easy to get Trevor on board, Trainwreck ought to be a cinch.
"Fuck off."
I pretty much went straight to the Trainyard after meeting up with Trevor, turning on my tracking to try and find Trainwreck. That wasn't the hard part, given he was living out of a box car like an old-timey hobo. I found him in around thirty minutes of concentrated searching.
No, the problem was that I had not expected someone so… contentious.
It didn't help that I was still out of sorts when the Grimoire spun around again, offering me a freebie. On its own, not very powerful. When combined with my other perks, though…
Spoiler: Origin and Element
Origin and Element(Kara no Kyokai - Free) - Origin and Element are attributes of the soul and one's deepest being in this world. Everyone has one of each, some people have more, but this just helps you decide on the importance of your own ones.
An Origin is like a concept, a word, that is at the core of your character. It might describe a secret side of you that you rarely show, it might show influence through every action you take or it might just be something you really love about yourself. Taboo for someone who feels a forbidden love, Worthlessness for someone who seems to be a complete failure, Nostalgia for a man who considers his memories dearly important. An Origin by itself doesn't have much of an effect, merely lying unawakened. Some kinds of magecraft can eventually build on your Origin, such as a Taboo Origin Holder eventually learning to invest that effect into an item that inhibits the taboos of others. But these usually require quite high level skill and have subtle effects outside of extensive experimentation. You have an Origin of your choice, a normal one that is Unawakened and gives no real boons but has no real hindrance either.
An Element is more important, at least for a Magus. It describes something like your affinity for certain kinds of magic, significantly increasing talent in that area. Or rather, most Magi find it quite difficult to learn all but the most general magecraft outside of their Element. Far from impossible but much more inefficient. Most people have an Affinity for one of the five primary elements- Fire, Water, Earth, Air and Ether. These ascribe to much more than just basic elementalism. Fire might cover consumption, energy transfer or fuel. Earth may relate to cultivation and embedding of energy. Water covers the flow and cycle and combination of things. And so on. You have a moderately strong affinity for an Element of your choice. One of the primary five is recommended but if you know of an alternate choice, you can pick one, as long as it's not superior to the primary five. No Average Ones with talent for all five Elements and no uniquely powerful Element.
Element was a no-brainer, with Evolution providing me some boosts to hydrokinesis and ice-related magic. I went with a water affinity the moment I selected it, feeling something different slide into place deep within me. A click, resounding from the core of my being. But Origin was trickier.
It was something that might not have a lot of sway over my personality given No Strings On Me, yet even beyond that, it could have staggering consequences for my future magecraft. Let alone the metaphysics of what it'd do for the rest of my magic. I had to pick something that not only resonated with me as a concept but wouldn't screw me over in the future.
In the end, I settled on the Origin of Progression. That sort of thing felt just right in ways that were difficult to explain, as things locked down into my soul. Somehow it felt different to an elemental affinity, where this felt more concrete, part of the ethos I'd tried to establish since ending up on Earth-Bet.
I couldn't backslide into the past behaviors I'd once indulged in. Not with responsibilities and goals on the horizon that wouldn't stand for it. Progression felt like a recognition of that fact etched into my spirit.
Always forward, never backward.
Needless to say, it was a small comfort as I looked up at the somewhat intimidating figure of Trainwreck, glaring down at me. Not that I thought he'd be able to hurt me all that much, but there was still something daunting about the massive suit of haphazard metal he stood in. That, and his distinctly unwelcoming behavior.
"Listen, I think we've got a lot to offer each other, and-"
I didn't get to finish my speech, not before he stomped forward. "Listen kid, did you not get the fuckin' memo? Whatever you're sellin', I'm not buying."
Oh, this was frustrating. But I didn't have the type of leverage I needed to ensure good behavior, and I wasn't keen to push it either. Much to my chagrin, I was just going to have to let things go here.
Promising a cure for his solution would make me look silly if I didn't come up with said cure. He wasn't even trying to hear me out, which was annoying. It was a little odd that he was coming out of the gate with that level of aggression, though.
Which is when something clicked in my head. "… Have you already received an offer from someone else?"
"… I don't see how that's any of your business, runt."
Mm, that was frustrating. I knew Lisa would be moving quickly, but goddamn, was she already trying to poach him? It wasn't that unlikely given the fact that in one of the drafts of Worm, Trainwreck held Rachel's position in the Undersiders. That was an unusual combo, but a feasible one.
"Okay, so someone's gotten to you," I grunted out, sucking in a deep breath. "I don't suppose I can appeal to your sense of community to become a hero?"
He stared at me.
I stared back.
"Get the hell out of here."
"Yeah," I sighed, "I'm going, I'm going…"
Well, I got one out of two. That's good enough for now.
Spoiler: Author's Note
I'm not dead. This isn't dead. I'm just working on a Projection Quest concept and working it over before I bring it forward, but this is indeed still alive. Also tired, but that's par for the course.
Spoiler: Accepted Perks
Origin and Element(Kara no Kyokai - Free) - Origin and Element are attributes of the soul and one's deepest being in this world. Everyone has one of each, some people have more, but this just helps you decide on the importance of your own ones.
An Origin is like a concept, a word, that is at the core of your character. It might describe a secret side of you that you rarely show, it might show influence through every action you take or it might just be something you really love about yourself. Taboo for someone who feels a forbidden love, Worthlessness for someone who seems to be a complete failure, Nostalgia for a man who considers his memories dearly important. An Origin by itself doesn't have much of an effect, merely lying unawakened. Some kinds of magecraft can eventually build on your Origin, such as a Taboo Origin Holder eventually learning to invest that effect into an item that inhibits the taboos of others. But these usually require quite high level skill and have subtle effects outside of extensive experimentation. You have an Origin of your choice, a normal one that is Unawakened and gives no real boons but has no real hindrance either.
An Element is more important, at least for a Magus. It describes something like your affinity for certain kinds of magic, significantly increasing talent in that area. Or rather, most Magi find it quite difficult to learn all but the most general magecraft outside of their Element. Far from impossible but much more inefficient. Most people have an Affinity for one of the five primary elements- Fire, Water, Earth, Air and Ether. These ascribe to much more than just basic elementalism. Fire might cover consumption, energy transfer or fuel. Earth may relate to cultivation and embedding of energy. Water covers the flow and cycle and combination of things. And so on. You have a moderately strong affinity for an Element of your choice. One of the primary five is recommended but if you know of an alternate choice, you can pick one, as long as it's not superior to the primary five. No Average Ones with talent for all five Elements and no uniquely powerful Element.
Power Granting Deal(Sailor Moon - 400CP) - You may grant a portion of your power and some of your powers to up to eight willing people at the same time, if you wish. This power is connected to you, and you may take it back any time you wish. However, your power will decrease the more power you give someone. You may also share your powers or other forms with people, but until you take them back you will lack the power you gave. You may, for example, give someone your fire powers or part of your vast wells of magical power or give your excess energy to someone to empower them.
Chapter 11
March 27th, 2011
Odell
Having an altered Origin changed relatively little about me, I'd say. It wasn't an awakened version, though I suspected that if I looked underneath the surface metaphysically, I'd find more altered about me. What was more interesting was the way choosing my primary Element had altered things.
Water wasn't just a representation of water, the physical manifestation. It represented cycles and carried more fundamentally symbolic meanings than just the superficial one I'd attached to it. What that meant in the long-term, I didn't know, but was that all that different from anything else I'd done?
A lot of my choices were me throwing random shit at a wall and seeing what stuck, what was effective, and what I could remember from my old life. Calling any of my moves high planning was, at best, being charitable. At worst, it was outright lying about my capabilities.
Whatever. No one said saving the world had to be optimized for magical perfection.
The rest of the weekend after I'd recruited Trevor went pretty simply. We chatted back and forth over the phone, but neither of us was in a rush, and I doubted that Trevor was all that interested in chatting. From what I could tell from our correspondence he'd been quite enamored with that dust-infused necklace I'd given him as a recruitment bonus.
Did I want Shards to figure out how Endless Dust worked potentially? Not really, but I doubted he'd significantly improve his tinkertech at any speed. That gave me more than enough time to come to grips with my new capabilities.
Flat out, my Evolution-related cryokinesis was sped up by a not insignificant margin. It wasn't something I'd deigned to reveal to the public at large yet, but the intensity of how much I could freeze at a given time was a little scary. Piling on Evolution, some magicka from Clever Craft, and lastly magical energy from my Magic Circuits, the combo of all three of those working in concert was… daunting.
Though really, it just meant I had another outstanding tool to use in my arsenal when it came to fighting the various parahumans of the Bay.
Truthfully, I was kind of tempted to jump right into patrolling and getting ready to take on my next real set of targets in the Bay. Bakuda was a problem , but she was one the Protectorate managed to handle canonically. Her jump-to move to start stitching bombs inside of people had largely been because of her position's insecurity with Lung's arrest.
Well, that and she was a bit psychotic.
Regardless of the specifics, if Lung wasn't taken down I'm pretty sure the Bay would have a bit more wiggle room before any large-scale bombing threats. There was a chance I was wrong, though, which meant that I'd have to dedicate Possessive Predator toward her capture in an instant if things started exploding around me.
Beyond the threat that Bakuda posed, there were more practical considerations, like the Empire. Ooh, how I desperately wanted to take the fight to the Empire, and aggressively. I'd like to say it was for particularly heroic reasons, but no, I was a black parahuman in Brockton Bay.
Until they were dead or gone, I'd never really be safe to walk around the goddamn streets. Not without worrying about the specter of the largest gang in the city looming over me.
For that reason alone I was more inclined to start ripping into them, but some restraint was going to be needed there. They had enough Capes on their roster I'd have to be a little worried about unless I wanted to show off more of my Ghur capabilities than I wanted publicly known.
Letting people know I could turn into birds and rats? Not a huge deal. Letting them know I could turn into a dragon big enough to give Lung a run for his money? Different ballpark entirely.
So no. I was going to display some restraint and start doing the sensible thing. Stalk their skinhead idiots until I had a nice chunk of information profiled about their hideouts. Or bug Lisa into giving me whatever Coil had on them.
Naturally, if she'd try to charge me for that info, I'd just remind her that she wouldn't have been in a position to do so if it wasn't for my actions.
Lastly was the more mercantile, business-related of my interests. I wanted to start a corporate superheroic group and had the financial backing to make it happen. As a mechanism to help improve things in the city, it was a good idea.
The thing was, I wasn't balls-deep in the civic and business culture like a born native was. Beyond that, I needed someone to help set up the thing. That was why I was looking around for potential options.
Though as to the one I'd settled on, I wasn't sure about the wisdom of the decision.
Most of my time on Earth-bet has been marked by a certain amount of caution. It only made sense when I was sharing the planet with several notable precognitive Thinkers, and some horrifyingly potent Masters. However, here and now, I felt some refuge in audacity.
After all, it wasn't every day that some random Cape walked up to their office, and asked to speak with the spokesperson.
I'd skipped school a bit earlier than usual, gotten home to grab my costume, and changed near the union's offices. Frankly, I think the fact that I was so calm and polite about my introduction, and made it aggressively clear that I was a hero, was one of the reasons why no one was freaking out.
However, that didn't stop me from getting a lot of looks as I sat around the reception area, tapping away at my phone. I'd given it some thought as to what avenue would be ideal to start to help the city, and understandably, approaching the dockworker's union was my best bet. They were mostly bouncing between jobs, and they'd definitely be useful for some of the plans I had going forward.
A bunch of superheroes running around fighting villains was one thing. Yet the corporate structure I was going for meant that it needed more than that to keep itself useful for helping the city. I'd need to own property, which would have staff, like janitors, receptionists, admin, etc.
That was before you got into the fact that I had a few different methods to turn the garbage of boat graveyards into very useful products. The amount of Dust I could generate right now was relatively tiny in comparison to the industrial amounts a civilization in Endless Legend could produce.
But that tiny amount still meant I could turn junk into low-tier magical items, infused with Dust. Hell, my ability to create magic rings, talismans, insignia, tomes, and foci could be granted out piecemeal. I could probably hire people exclusively to be subordinate Tinkers, and work on projects I just didn't have the time to focus on.
Turning what should be a relatively small, cottage industry into something that could prove exceedingly lucrative, as time went on.
"Sir," the receptionist stated, drawing me out of my reverie, "Mr. Hebert will see you now."
Blinking, I nodded back over to the woman behind the desk and stood up, "Thank you."
She gestured to a door a little ways down the hall, and made my way into the office itself. It was where I got my first view of Danny Hebert.
Danny was my choice because, in the end, he was generally a pretty good guy. Devastated by his wife's death and a little neglectful as a father, yes. But grief would do strange things to you, and if nothing else I'd never seen anything written that he was bad at his job.
To the contrary, I doubted that anyone would have allowed him to keep the position, even if his work usually amounted to giving the union guys bad news on the regular. Someone would have usurped the voluntary position from him if that was the case.
Additionally, as the head of hiring, and spokesperson, he was really the forward face of the union. Tall, thin, and balding, with big green eyes behind those large spectacles of his. His dark hairline had seen better days, yet that was usually the first casualty of aging for men as they grew older.
"Mr. Hebert?" I inquired, even if I already saw the family resemblance to Taylor, "I'm Folklord. It's a pleasure to meet you."
"Likewise," Danny cooly offered, offering a hand for a shake. I took it and squeezed back firmly, but not too hard, "I'm told you had something of a proposition for us?"
"That's right."
"And you're offering this with the understanding that the union is not to be involved with any kind of criminal activity, correct?" A fair point to raise, given the presumable efforts of local gangs.
I gave him another nod, as I took a seat at the chair on the other side of the desk, "Yep. If anything, I'm mostly offering this as a means to employ people, and put money back into the community."
Resting a hand on the table, my fingers drummed idly, while the Grimoire spun up in my mind. And this next one was a little bit of a doozy for my proprioception.
Spoiler: Terrarian (Free)
Terrarian (Terraria - Free) - Your body has been transformed to be something similar in capability to the star of the video game. Your Health and Mana have been quantified, with a heads-up display that can show you said numbers in the form of hearts or bars to keep track of them. The average Terrarian begins with 50 Health and 10 Mana, representing the rough average for a typical human. You may begin with more than this, depending on any other Perks or bonuses you have towards health and magic. Your body is in peak physical condition, capable of running and jumping for a few hours before you start to feel the slightest fatigue.
You also possess an Inventory, a special extra-dimensional space within which you can store items. When prepping items for storage in your inventory, you can cause them to shrink down into a small, hand-sized chunk, shaped and colored to represent whatever they happen to be. Similar items can stack together, up to a certain amount depending on rarity. You have 50 'slots' within which to store items or stacks of items, and you can store or retrieve items with just a thought. Upon beating enemies or destroying objects like jars, they will occasionally drop hearts which can heal your health, stars that can replenish your mana, or pre-shrunk items as loot that you can suck into your inventory.
Finally, you are able to take stored items and use them to craft new items, though many such recipes require a special workbench or station to be nearby for you to actually make an item. However, if the correct station is nearby, and you have all needed materials, you will instantly be aware of whatever item you could potentially make. This starts with Terraria recipes, but it is possible for other recipes to be developed or discovered, given time.
This was a useful power, undoubtedly. But it wasn't something that I needed to use, not when I'd been looking for something to hand off to Rio. Turning the kid into something of a grab-bag Tinker/Brute/Striker would probably not be too amiss given I was already shown to be the mother of all Trumps.
More interestingly was how it quantified my current statistics. My mana was pretty monstrous, along with the number of hearts on my display, but everything else seemed pretty normal. Still, while it was useful, it was not so useful that I wouldn't just prefer to hand it off to Rio.
"Are you familiar with the laws around spoils for parahumans?" I asked, trying to buy myself a few seconds to get used to the mild physiological changes that came with the transformation.
"Ah, I'm afraid not."
"Well, I'll save you the specifics and say that provided an independent hero is using money they find during their crime-fighting towards said goal, they're usually allowed to keep it," I explained, giving him the broad strokes.
Something like realization dawned across his face at that news, "I'm guessing you came into a significant amount of money, then?"
"More than a little," I confirmed with a smile, the corners of my eyes crinkling with the expression, "To which I'd like the dockworker's union to assist me in being the public purchasers of a shelf corporation, though I'll be handling all the finance through secure means."
Number Man strikes again, for arguably the most reliable parahuman in the setting, bar Dragon. Who knew banking services that were no frills, and no fuss was such a useful utility to have?
"To what end?" Danny questioned, a dark brow arching my way.
"Functionally I'd like to create a corporate superhero team, financed by myself, but employing members of the union in several roles, along with renting property for an office and workshop, if possible," A warehouse, one of the seemingly infinite warehouses in the city, would be nice.
I could tell he was slightly surprised by the offer, yet not entirely sold on it. Reasonable, given the violence inherent to the Cape culture in the city, "Is that safe? If someone has a bone to pick with you, they'd be able to come to the office and trash it, hitting whoever's there."
"An understandable fear," I agreed, respecting his caution, "Which is why I'll be posting defenses to deter any sort of unwelcome intruders before long. Additionally, while this isn't quite public knowledge yet, I possess healing capabilities. PRT tested and confirmed to be safe if you're cautious."
That got his attention, as his furrowed brow line raised, and I continued, "Those same healing powers would be granted as healthcare incentives to not only those directly working under me, but also to the entirety of the union."
Healthcare was expensive. That held on this planet as much as my old one, and thankfully free healing was a massive incentive to offer as a parahuman. Currently, I couldn't cure diseases, but much like transmutation, that was just a matter of time and effort rather than any lack of skill concerning Clever Craft.
Once I gained the ability to heal diseases and work on preexisting health conditions, my value was going to skyrocket. I could already see that declaration of free healthcare beginning to cause Danny to waver a bit.
"… That's an extremely generous offer," he breathed out, taking some time to visibly center himself, "And I'd probably be lambasted if I didn't at least bring it to the leadership. Is there anything else you can tell me about this offer?"
Oh, he couldn't see my smile, but the wolfish look that came across my face seemed to have communicated the broad strokes about what I felt.
" Gladly."
The next hour or so was me giving Danny the broad strokes of what I wanted from this arrangement. An ability to rent, but more preferably buy, property from the union for this corporate team. Assistance with acquiring a shelf corporation, with some help on the legal and business front.
Hell, given the state of the properties I could buy, chances were I'd be looking to hire union workers for renovation too. The process of working on modernizing some of those older buildings was bound to be a little pricey. It was also something that'd put money into the pockets of people that needed it.
The millions I stole from Coil were not inexhaustible, yet I'd never stolen them to enrich myself. They were a means to an end, to start the long process of reversing the economic stagnation of the Bay. Besides, I had enough disparate means to make that money back in spades.
I could only hope that Leviathan wouldn't destroy all that progress I attempted.
One part of our negotiations was something I was a little tense about but had to bring up. It was important since it could alter a lot of my other plans entirely.
"… Another thing to bring up is whether or not you know one good with metalworking. Forging, machining, stuff like that."
Looking up from the page filled with notes, he glanced over the rims of his glasses, "Mmhm. Why? Did you need someone for work like that?"
Chances were there had to be at least a few people in a blue-collar dockworking union with that skill set. I'd eat my boots if there weren't.
"Yes. To be clear, this is a matter that requires the utmost secrecy. I have an ability that allows me to create a contract both parties have to agree to and literally cannot disobey. It's something that you have to agree to activate," I rushed to explain, putting off the mounting concern in his eyes, "But anyone who chose to involve themselves with the job would need to sign one of those contracts."
I just couldn't take the risk of loaning out any part of Dust Refinery otherwise. If it got out I could grant what were functionally Tinker specialties, let alone my other discrete powers? It wouldn't just be the PRT and Protectorate breathing down my neck, but anyone else who wanted that kind of power.
For one, I'm pretty sure the Yàngbǎn wouldn't hesitate to try and kidnap me. I was walking around with a version of Null's power, if you squinted at it, which made just flat out too much of an enticing target.
"That's… going to be something we're going to have to kick up the chain," Danny tentatively stated, some hesitance evident at the admitted Master ability. Which was smart in his shoes, if inconvenient for me, "Either way, if there's nothing else, I've got quite a list to share with my bosses."
"Totally fine. Is there anything else?"
Danny opened his mouth, and then hesitated, before opening it once again. "Do you mind if I ask you a personal question?"
"Depends on the question."
"You're a young man. Shouldn't you be enjoying being, well, a kid? Or give some serious thought to joining the Wards?"
Objectively, yes. If I was a native of Earth-Bet, without any idea of the scandals about the Protectorate and PRT, or I didn't have any idea of the course of the story, I'd have joined the Wards. It would have made large swathes of my life easier.
"Things would have been easier, yes," I agreed wholeheartedly, "But not safer, not in a city like this. Are you familiar with the power classifications, Mr. Hebert?"
"Vaguely," he admitted.
"I've got a Thinker power. To clarify, that sort of power gives you a really broad range of ways to know things. It's the way I know, without a shadow of a doubt, that this is the method that results in the least grief for me and those around me." Which was really a hope for me, if I'm being honest.
Philosophically, I'm not sure where I fell. There were times when I landed on a more deontological view of taking action for goodness' sake, like preventing Dinah's kidnapping. But then I took more consequentialist decisions, like not even trying to befriend Taylor, even if I knew she really needed one. Which was so I could more easily recruit her in costume later.
It's stuff like that which really threw me, personally, for a loop, when I touted out a utilitarianist answer like what I told Danny. Maybe I'm just one of those people with a morality that is dependent on the situation at hand, without any real strong limits.
The only thing I'd done so far that drew strong moral issues from me was the various acts of violence, and Mastering Coil. And frankly, I cared more about the latter than the violence.
Regardless, I had other things to do with my day than wax poetic in my head. "If there's nothing else sir, I'll be taking my leave. Thank you for taking time out of your day to see me." Reaching into my overcoat, I handed over a slip of paper with my PHO account, burner email, and burner number on it. "When you need to reach me for questions, feel free to hit me up there."
Chances were this wasn't a situation where there'd be a simple solution within the week. Business negotiations could drag on for ages, though nothing was stopping me from continuing my other plans apace.
"Thanks for coming in with this offer, young man," Danny smiled back, "It's not every day I'm pleasantly surprised by the Capes in the local community."
With that, I left the dockworker's association, already texting Rio to meet me at the base. There was something of a surprise in store for him there.
"THE TIME HAS COME!" I couldn't help but cackle as Rio entered our makeshift base, darkness fluttering around me at my beck and call. I hadn't even bothered putting out candles, rather instead standing maskless in our base. "RIO! Are you prepared for that promise I made you?"
Was I being a drama queen? Yes. But it wasn't every day you gave a friend superpowers.
I could tell that he was a little surprised, though. "Wait, real shit? You finally got something you could hand off to me?"
"Precisely, my younger friend."
"There's a two-year age difference between us, bro."
"Semantics," I waved off, not arguing the unknowingly incorrect point, "I can grant my powers to other people, and I've got the perfect one to grant to you. But we're going to have to do something first."
His lips pursed, as put a gimlet eye towards me, "Are we gonna have to do something with chicken corpses again? Because that was weird."
No, our Formalcraft days were done. For now.
I shook my head at the question, "Not quite. I have a means of enforcing a geas on people, with their consent. It's just a way to ensure that no one can break the bindings of the contract."
"Oh, that's not that bad."
"Naturally, I want you to take one," I diplomatically stated, "The contract is very, very simple. Do you agree to never knowingly tell anyone the secret of where you gained your powers? Because if you can't agree to that, there's nothing I can hand off to you."
This was a serious fucking point of contention, I'd say. It wasn't that I didn't trust Rio, it was that he was fourteen. And for all of his maturity, if I got fucking OUTED by a fourteen-year-old Cape, I'd never live it down. Let alone all the other trouble that'd inevitably come with it.
"Is it that big of a secret?"
"Yes," I unequivocally stated, a harsh tone entering my voice as I stared at him down, "People have killed over less when it comes to parahuman powers. If it gets out that I can hand them out like candy, people will literally burn this city to the ground to possess that ability."
Sure, I could only ever empower eight people at once. There were hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of parahumans worldwide, so that was a drop in the bucket of those numbers. But when it came to each of those eight, I could give them as many abilities as I wished.
And the Grimoire was a big fucking book.
Speaking of the Grimoire, it spun around but landed on something from Wonderland No More I couldn't afford. Something about cakes that granted minor powers? Whatever.
To his credit, Rio had been giving the situation some visible thought as I mulled over things on my end. His face all scrunched up in concentration, he was rubbing his chin and trying to think over the offer. Honestly, I left it pretty generous, given I could rescind the power whenever I wished.
In the end though, this was Earth-bet. Offering a kid superpowers with relatively few strings attached besides being a superhero was a deal almost anyone would leap to. It felt a little manipulative, but I was short on allies I could wholeheartedly trust. Hard times called for desperate measures.
"I agree," Rio stated, and in that moment I felt the magical energy I'd been holding inside release from my circuits. The geas was something that really only affected him, so it settled inside of his chest like a cold hand on his heart, making the boy shudder.
"Ugh," he grunted, face scrunched up in distaste, " That's a geas? Feels kind of shitty."
"It's not supposed to feel nice," I shot back, approaching slowly, "It'll keep you from talking willingly about the origin of powers, but it's not really subtle about it. So try to deflect or say it's personal if you can."
"Got it. And about that power…?"
Excitement and anticipation gleamed bright in his gaze, though I couldn't blame him. With a roll of my eyes, I reached out and grabbed his shoulder, before I felt Terrarian leave me and flow into Rio. It was a good thing I was holding him too, because I nearly collapsed to the ground.
Have you ever been winded? I'm talking about the kind of deep feeling of exhaustion that comes from having run a marathon when you collapse on the ground and feel your heartbeat pulse through your veins. Your vision exclusively white, and incapable of focusing on anything in particular.
That was the kind of exhaustion I felt, if briefly, letting Terrarian flow through my soul and into Rio's. I became less, with the act of giving, a fundamental piece of me grafted onto him. And what a piece it was.
He all but grew an inch on the spot, muscular and turning from a lean kid to his Olympic counterpart. Peak human physiology in an instant, as I saw his eyes blink and look at things that weren't there in his sight. He sucked in a gasped breath, looking around at everything.
Though he did eye me up with some concern as I breathed hard, sweat running down my brow. "You okay? I'm digging whatever this is, but not if it kills you."
"I'm fine. I'd never used this power before, so I didn't know what to expect. Just winded me for a little bit."
Already I was feeling vigor flooding back into me, but it was all but a confirmation that this wasn't going to be a power that I could rely on willy-nilly amid combat. Not without practice, or strengthening my soul. Giving away pieces of power that I'd earned felt wrong, deep in my core, in a way that was hard to put into words.
Like the opposite of Progression.
"Okay," he nodded, swallowing slowly as he took a step back and glanced down at his body, slapping his abdomen briefly. "What did you end up giving me, anyway? I've got abs now, and I feel… good. I'm also seeing weird video game stuff."
We were getting back to more familiar territory than the dubious state of my soul. Good.
"Alright, so I've given your body a top-to-bottom transformation. Your health and 'mana'," I punctuated that word with air quotations, "are represented by the red hearts and blue bar. You're also basically in peak human condition for your age. Running and jumping around for hours is what it'd take to leave you even slightly winded."
That got a broad grin from his face, as Rio lifted up an arm now laden with muscle and flexed his bicep. "I'm feeling' that. Anything else?"
"Next up is your inventory. Extra-dimensional, undetectable space with fifty distinct 'slots'. However, you can stack specific items in the same slot, but I'm not so hot on the specifics of that," which was true, because I preferred Minecraft over Terraria, "The range on that is around 7.2 meters, and you can suck up just about anything in reach nonliving into it."
He didn't even hesitate to test that out, reaching out for a nearby cardboard box and seeing it shrink and disappear as it floated into him. Then, in an instant, he brought it back out into his hands, a broad, stupid grin on his face, "Ooh, I can think of some ways to fuck with people using this."
If he was clever, there were a lot of very interesting things a guy could do with the inventory alone. I'd leave it to his discretion to figure out the limits of what he could do on his own time. Beyond that, we had one more power to go over.
Technically, this was probably his biggest. Even if it was also one that'd probably make all the TInkers in the city green with envy. That was their problem for not being as good of a Tinker, though.
"Lastly is your crafting ability. You can take stored items and combine them to make new ones, but you can also use that to make specialized workstations that also let you craft new things. You've got a pretty instant awareness of what you can make at all times, and the results are instant, but there's not a lot of variety between the things you can make as a Tinker."
He could make items instantly, but they would all be perfectly the same. I didn't think the value of what I'd given him was lost on Rio, though, even as his eyes widened at the description of the crafting ability.
"Dude…"
"No need for thanks, just a normal Trump happy to break the rules every parahuman follows, and-"
I didn't get to say anything else though, because Rio did the one thing I didn't expect. He took a step forward, reached out, and gave me a hug.
It'd been so long since I'd gotten a hug from anyone, my mind just sort of went blank. Which he took as permission to squeeze me a little tighter to him.
" You, Odell, are the best friend that anyone could ever ask for. Thank you for keeping your promise."
Gingerly and with the awkwardness my autist ass could only muster, I reached up and hugged him in return, patting his back.
"Sure dude. What else are friends for?"
Still, I had the warm fuzzies as we pulled back from one another after a couple of seconds. You have about three to six seconds max to hug your bro, no matter the situation. I didn't make the rules about being a guy, I just followed them.
Clearing my throat, I gestured at the warehouse around us. "Now, you've got your first real training exercise before we work on getting your crafting up and ready."
He glanced around, confusion writ large across his face, "What? Laps around the warehouse?"
"Pfft, no. You've got the perfect cleaning power, so get practicing with that inventory and help me get rid of the rest of the junk around here."
The groan of frustration that came out of him matched my harsh cackle of laughter perfectly.
400CP In Reserve.
Spoiler: Accepted Perks
Terrarian (Terraria - Free) - Your body has been transformed to be something similar in capability to the star of the video game. Your Health and Mana have been quantified, with a heads-up display that can show you said numbers in the form of hearts or bars to keep track of them. The average Terrarian begins with 50 Health and 10 Mana, representing the rough average for a typical human. You may begin with more than this, depending on any other Perks or bonuses you have towards health and magic. Your body is in peak physical condition, capable of running and jumping for a few hours before you start to feel the slightest fatigue.
You also possess an Inventory, a special extra-dimensional space within which you can store items. When prepping items for storage in your inventory, you can cause them to shrink down into a small, hand-sized chunk, shaped and colored to represent whatever they happen to be. Similar items can stack together, up to a certain amount depending on rarity. You have 50 'slots' within which to store items or stacks of items, and you can store or retrieve items with just a thought. Upon beating enemies or destroying objects like jars, they will occasionally drop hearts which can heal your health, stars that can replenish your mana, or pre-shrunk items as loot that you can suck into your inventory.
Finally, you are able to take stored items and use them to craft new items, though many such recipes require a special workbench or station to be nearby for you to actually make an item. However, if the correct station is nearby, and you have all needed materials, you will instantly be aware of whatever item you could potentially make. This starts with Terraria recipes, but it is possible for other recipes to be developed or discovered, given time.
Spoiler: Author's Notes
First chapter of the new month, first chapter in awhile, and it came together in relatively short amount of time once I actually got started working on it. As usual, tell me your complaints, worries, if you liked or hated it. I'm a sucker for feedback, positive or negative, likes, so everything helps.